


The Ghost of Another Choice

by ms_qualia



Series: The Ghost Of Another Choice [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Banter, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Delusions of Literature, F/M, Flashbacks, Love/Hate, Plot Twists, Power Dynamics, Slow Burn, Space Opera, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-09 08:34:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 48,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5532722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ms_qualia/pseuds/ms_qualia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey draws on the powers of the Dark instead of the Light to fight Kylo Ren in the snowy forest on the Starkiller, and her choice changes the fate of the Galaxy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

“You need a teacher. I can show you the ways of the Force!”

She could feel her pulse in her temples, between the whooshes of her heartbeat their breathing— hers and Kylo Ren’s. If she listened very closely, she might swear she heard his pulse as well.

Everything else was eerily silent. The universe had narrowed to the lightsaber in her hand and the face of the man who killed her hero, and the screaming, aching fatigue of every battered muscle in her body. She leaned in to the hilt, her face contorted in pain.

“Why?” she said.

Kylo Ren’s face twisted with the effort of fending off her attack, his eyes locked with hers. He leaned into his blade with all his weight and strength, and her light frame was no match. She felt snow creep up the back of her leg as she slid backward. Her back knee began to buckle.

“NO!”

She felt a powerful red energy crackle from the base of her spine and press forward through her, strengthening her attack with the power of the Dark Side. Kylo Ren’s eyes widened, and he took a step back to absorb the strength of her redoubled effort.

It was an opening. She reared back and kicked him in the belly, as hard as she could. He screamed as she hit him in his gut wound. Blood spattered up Rey’s leg as he fell backward in the snow. The faint sound of his pulse went silent, and knew instantly he had passed out. She reached out her hand and pulled his lightsaber to her. It came to her without resistance.

She approached him slowly, both blue and red lightsabers reflecting off the snow, both pointed toward his heart. As he came to, he clutched his side and dug his heels into the snow, kicking, pushing himself away from her. He was hurt, and badly. He could die, she realized. A wave of nausea passed over her as his pain screamed through the Force.

“Answer me!” She bared her teeth at him.

“I— I can teach you—“

“ANSWER ME.” She circled around to approach him from his side, like a predator looking for the final place to strike. He rolled on his side toward her and clutched his stomach. Blood darkened the snow beneath him.

“We all have to die, Rey. All living things. You and I, and even my worm of a father were destined to die for— for a purpose.”

She jerked his own lightsaber up and pointed it so close to his face its light reflected off his skin and onto the snow. He drew his head back away from its heat.

“Don’t you dare insult him to me! I could kill you. I could leave you to die!” she said.

“Killing me will set you farther on your path, but you cannot walk it alone. Not even you can be alone through this. You don’t have to be anymore.”

She drew her head back as if recoiling from a slap. He looked up at her and nodded. His tongue pressed against his bottom lip. He’d cut it on his teeth when he fell, and blood and spit flowed across his lips and down his chin in a thick, obscene sheet.

“You know.” he said. “You know. You feel it. If you go to Skywalker with this anger, if you kill me now, he will refuse to help you the way he refused me. He can’t help you with your rage. I can teach you to conquer this feeling and anything else you desire. I can walk with you for a time. If you want to conquer me now, then kill me and my Master will help you. You will not be alone.”

By the dim light of the dying star, she searched his face and found something like compassion.

Just then, the world beneath them began to move and shudder. Behind her she heard a sickening crack, and by impulse she turned to see the ground open like the mouth of a terrible creature. At almost the same moment, she felt her arm pulled sharply. She heard her shoulder pop out of its socket a fraction of a second before she felt it. Luke’s lightsaber flew into Kylo Ren’s outstretched hand as she screamed and fell to one knee. Her fingertips had been seared. She nearly dropped the other saber as she recovered herself.

He slowly rolled onto his knees and pulled himself back into a fighting stance, holding Luke’s blade. 

“I won’t tell you to be grateful.” he said. “If I’d taken mine back, it would have taken your hand off.”

Rey looked over her shoulder at the widening gap and knew that she needed to run and jump then, before it was too late.

Without Luke’s sword.

She looked back at Ren’s bloody face. She felt the ground move again, and waited for the quake to end so her voice would not be drowned out by its din. She waited, also, because she was afraid she would run if she had the choice. She looked behind her once more, and thought, for a moment, she could see her own back as the ghost of another choice ran from that place.

It was too late; the crack had widened too far to make the jump.

“I just,” she said. Tears welled up in her eyes as exhaustion caught up with her. “I just want to know why this had to happen.”

He nodded. “I’ll teach you. I promise. But now, we have to run.”

She took a breath, then pressed her thumb over the saber switch. The red blade flickered and dimmed. Kylo Ren’s eyes flicked between his blade in her hands and her eyes before also switching off Luke’s blade. They watched one another warily as they each stowed their hilts. They faced one another, palms visible and empty.

“How can I trust you?” she said.

“Don’t.” he said. His voice cracked. She knew absolutely he was too injured to escape by himself, and from the expression on his face he knew it as well. He held out his hand to her.

She took it.


	2. Part 2

He held out his hand to her.

She took it.

He pulled her in, with a strength that seemed impossible given his injury, and grabbed her injured arm. She felt him using the Force to hold himself up like a puppet. She yelped in pain.

“I can’t use all of my strength just to stand. You’re going to need to use that arm.”

She pulled back and immediately regretted it as her vision whited out with pain.

“Stop moving or I’ll break it.” He suddenly jerked her arm upward. She screamed as the joint popped back into place. He ran his upper lip over his teeth, dissatisfied.

“It still can’t hold weight.” He said. She nodded. There was a tear in the muscle above her chest that burned every time she breathed in, and her entire back on her right side was impossibly sore. It’d just tear more if she used it, and they would be in the same position. He tilted his head back and his eyelashes fluttered. He mumbled some kind complex arithmetic to himself before rolling his head back around to face her. He took one of his gloves off between his teeth.

“You won’t like this, but pay attention. I won’t it to you show you again. I don’t do Jedi parlor tricks.”

His gloved hand snaked around her back, and his massive bare hand slid under her tunic, above her breast. She froze, too scared too move. His breathing slowed, and his face relaxed.

She felt a warm euphoria pass over her, and the pain in her shoulder, arm and singed fingertips began to subside—

— and all too quickly, he withdrew. When she opened her eyes, he nearly had his glove on again. She moved her shoulder, and winced. It was bearable, but not good. She inspected her fingers. Two ropy scars had begun to knit themselves over her burned fingertips, but had not finished. Little flecks of burned flesh peeked out.

“It’s still injured.”

“I am aware. We need to go.”

“Heal yourself first.”

“I would have done that if it were an option!”

The ground beneath them began to quake once more. She shook his hands off of her arms, and angrily threw his arm around her shoulder, and her arm around his waist and began to walk as quickly as she could. His weight fell on her like a puppet with its strings cut as they trudged back toward the entrance of the base she’d just escaped. She took a few slow, painful steps.

“You saw me carry myself with the Force, I know you know how,” he said. She was too busy concentrating to reply. “Why would a woman with your talents rely solely on her flesh? Channel your pain.”

She stopped to pull him up further. He made himself limp, his dead weight grinding down into her. It was unnecessarily petty. He could still stand if he chose to. He was intentionally making their survival— his own survival— more difficult for her.

She was furious.

As she inhaled, he became lighter. His back unbowed as his own weight was taken off of his shoulders and abdomen.

“Good,” he said. “We can run like this.” He ran his hand across her back and down her arm. He pressed his arm into hers, his fingers interleaved with hers. “When we’re in sight of the hangar, act like my prisoner and do as I say, or we will waste too much time.”

She nodded, and they ran through the forest to a clearing. He looked down at her, and she threw his arm around her neck, and used her hands to hang from him and pull his arm away from her throat, kicking at the air in mock frenzy.

“Let me GO, murderer!” she screamed, every obscenity she knew at him while simultaneously holding up the bones of his back and shoulders with the power of her will. He dragged her across the snow toward a fighter ship and a small group of Storm Trooper pilots running in all directions, preparing the fighters on the pad for launch. They spotted Kylo Ren, and several stood at attention as he approached, Rey dragged in front of him and covering his wound from sight.

“One of you, prepare me a shuttle. The rest, evacuate.”

“General Hux has already given the evacuate order, Sir,” one said.

“Now I’ve given it. Is the C-Wing still in dock? I need to take the girl to Master Snoke.” She dropped him a short distance and pounded her head against his chest, then quickly lifted him again.

“Don’t you dare!” She screamed.

He played her threat off as if he were continuing to easily fight off her struggling. He barely broke his stride.

“Aye, sir, just inside. Will you need an escort onboard?”

“I have this well in hand. Bind her arms and legs for me.”

“Sir.” Two of the Storm Troopers offered Kylo Ren the electronic metal cuffs off of their belt. He refused them and indicated with a motion he wanted them to do it.. She struggled as they cuffed her ankles and wrists together, and Kylo Ren dragged her up the gangplank of the C-Wing using her own strength. 

C-Wings were old, from the days of the Galactic Civil War, and were from the manufacturer favored by the Rebellion and now the Resistance. At first glance, in a busy battle, a Resistance Pilot would overlook the vessel. It would give them just enough time to jump to hyperspace. It was not unheard of in the days of the Empire for high-ranking civilian Imperials to use the trick in their escape from a losing battle.

As he closed the hatch behind him, Ren dropped him, and they both fell. Her bound hands scrabbled at the cuffs at her legs while he crawled toward the cockpit.

“Uncuff me!”

“They won’t matter if we’re dead.”

“I can fly this thing!”

“You don’t know where we’re going.”

“Where are we going?”

He pulled himself up on the seat and started lining up orders for the computer. She rolled over onto her elbows and dragged herself over. The ground began to quake again. They felt a massive energy roiling beneath them. The containment around the reactor had begun to crack and vent through the grates in the hangar, filling it with steam. Only a thin layer of metal stood between them and lethal radiation.

“Forget takeoff, jump no—“ she yelled, but he’d already punched the button. The stars in front of their window appeared, and then smeared before them. The ship rattled. Kylo Ren sneered to hide his pain as his seat rattled.

“This was some very rough math.” he said.

“How long until we’re out?”

He glanced down at the timer.

“Now.”

— And they were out. She rolled into the back of his chair from the jolt.

“Uncuff me!”

He turned the chair around to face her, “I am not—”

“We’re about to hit that debris field and I’m a better pilot!”

He looked back over his shoulder as dozens of fist-size chunks of ice and rock smashed into their cruiser. Ren threw himself to the ground with a sickening thud, and his wound opened back up from a seep to a steady flow. He uncuffed her legs first, and she stood and dove for the controls and yanked them just in time to avoid a large meteor hitting the shield. Instead the ship shuddered and several console alarms blared as it pierced the coolant tank of one engine and took out the communications and navigation array.

She frantically looked out the window and at the final readout of the broken navigation system. The stellar navigation was out, but the magnetic one, which would allow her to see where she was going to land on the planet, was mercifully intact. They were passing through the ring of a habitable, but currently uninhabited, planet.

“I’m going to need to land!”

“Land, then!”

“I need my hands!”

She held her wrists down to him, and he raised his arm weakly to undo them. She turned her back on him.

“You don’t get to die while I land this.”

She looked at their landing coordinates again. They had the vice of being exactly where Ren wanted them to be. But on a habitable planet, a blind landing could easily put them into an ocean, or the side of a mountain, or maroon them in an area without any supplies. His choice was their best bet.

“Hold on!” They broke through the atmosphere with a crack, fire licking the edges of their window. She said a prayer under her breath for the engine to stay on long enough to get them to the landing site.

They passed over a massive lake, dotted with rocky islands. Most of the Islands were wooded. They skimmed across the top of the lake, no more than two men’s heights above its surface. Rey saw their destination indicated on the coordinates: a finger of land bridging one small island to a larger, central one. She switched to manual and eased down on the controls to guide them down, and they landed with a final shudder. She immediately shut off the engines to try to preserve the cracked one from further damage.

She turned and fell to her knees besides Ren. She grasped at his chest to see if he was still breathing. He was, but barely. She thought of spending her life in another remnant of the Galactic Civil War in a vast, empty waste, this time well and truly without another soul on the entire planet.

“You don’t get to die now, either. You promised me.”

She grasped at the bottom of his tunic, and found his garment was of one piece. She found the tear in the cloth near where he’d been pierced, and she tore it open further, exposing his torso and the deep burned gouge he’d torn open during their fight when he’d pounded on it, and she opened further when she kicked it.

She plunged her hands on and into the wound. He didn’t even shudder.

“What did he do, Rey, what is it he did?” she muttered. “He talked to himself, then what did he do? What did it feel like? He…” 

He had slowed his breathing, and relaxed. Her mind cleared as she followed his lead. She pushed out everything— her pain, frustration, and hatred, her anger at herself for abandoning her friends and the bitter feeling she might never see them again, or that worse, she might and how they’d look at her. She made that quiet, warm feeling larger. She pushed it out through her hands. 

For the first time in hours, years, she was not in pain. Her injuries, her isolation, Han’s death, these existed. They were facts. The truth was her old companion, come back to take her home.

No, to make her a home, wherever she was.

She pulled her fingers out of his wound slowly, as it closed. He began to breathe more steadily and deeply. She looked up at his face to see if he was awake.

The hormones which grant humans merciful relief in their final minutes before death flooded through his renewed body. His lips were parted and his eyes hooded in an ecstasy of drugged pleasure. He laughed like a madman and arched his back.

“That’s enough,” he panted, and grabbed her hands in his to pull them away from his body. She fell forward, inches from his face. He looked from her eyes, down to her lips, and, still laughing, pulled her to him, kissing her.

He had not been able to wipe the blood from his mouth after it had healed, and it was foul. He softly licked the seam where her lips met. He was shaking.

Her heart pounded. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. She pulled her hands out of his pulled her knees up onto his abdomen, and smacked him on the chest, hard. He rolled onto his side, and her off of him, laughing. She scrambled away from him and wiped his blood from her mouth.

“That would have hurt if I were injured.” He looked down at his abdomen and gingerly sat up, testing the muscles in his stomach and back. He had a fresh scar where his wound was. He touched his lip, and it had healed as well. 

“You must have really enjoyed that. I think you healed some old injures, too.”

“You don’t get to touch me!”

“You had your hands _inside of my body_ a moment ago.”

“That is disgusting!”

He leaned in and snarled at her, “I didn’t ask you to save my life. I have ordered you to do everything I’ve wanted, and I didn’t once tell you to save my life. Keep that in mind next time you do that, if it disgusts you. It’s very _suggestive_ to a delirious man.”

“You don’t get to lecture me or— or _punish me_ for _saving your life._ You’re going to tell me what I want to know before that ever, ever happens again.”

“You are injured, on _my_ planet, in _my_ ship, _my_ Padawan, and you are very, very fortunate we are allies on this because you are in no position to make any demands of me. You will get what you want _because I want it_ , and you will obey me to get it.”

Each word rang out and shook something in her core, like a bell ringing out sympathetically when its note is played. He didn’t just believe it, it was true. Terrifyingly, horribly true. She turned away from him to compose herself. Her rage would only take her farther from that brief peace she’d felt. She thumbed moisture away from her nose and caught her breath.

“So, what? What do we do now?” She demanded.

“You will call me Master, and we start your training.”


	3. Chapter 3

“So, what? What do we do now?” She demanded.

“You will call me Master, and we start your training.”

She rocked her head and body, as she absorbed his decree. The thought offended her. She hoped he would mistake her body language for assent and she could avoid the word until she could think of an excuse. No sale. His gaze bored into her. He would accept only compliance.

“I-i-if I accept you as my--- If i accept your training, you will tell me why you killed Han?”

He rolled his eyes. “That’s not what you asked me,” he said. “You asked me why this had to happen.”

“That’s the same thing.”

His face softened, suddenly, to pity. He kneeled, facing her. “This is why you need training. One question is the story of the galaxy from its birth, every soul, every unseen sacrifice and subtle consequence. Everything worth knowing. Every passion that has been and will be and the final, unmourned death of every mother’s child when this all ends in entropy. The other is just a story of a man who died, and his son who will die. The first is meaning. The second is just a series of events in the tiniest fraction of a moment.”

Her lips parted. “Wh-why are you telling me this?”

He reached for her hands, and she let him entwine his fingers in hers. He pressed their hands into the muscles above his knees, and leaned so close she felt his breath on her face. “You are capable of experiencing and understanding everything I have, and more. You would surpass me, in time. There are so few of us now, who can share this. It is a terrible thing to perceive the size of the Universe and your place in it, and to know it by yourself without knowing its meaning.”

His eyes were focused past her. Whatever he saw moved him.

“We were betrayed, Rey. We inherited the ability to perceive the Darkess, but denied the traditions which would let us thrive in it. I have devoted my life to resurrecting the old ways so people like us,” he squeezed her hands “who can touch and choose to become One with the very Force which set the Universe in motion, don’t die alone like animals, ignorant we are infinite, afraid of the Dark. I could conquer the entire galaxy, but it’s for nothing if I abandon you. Or anyone like you.”

“Anyone like us?” she whispered.

He looked away and inclined his head toward her in grudging assent.

She felt the same yearning she’d felt as a child, creating dolls of heroes and imagining hers would come, and they would skate across the stars and become endless. It was a need and pain as marrow-deep as hunger, and she had believed until that moment there was no food which could sate it.

He let her hands go and brushed them off of him, and stood.

“We have to go,” he said.

“Why?”

He motioned toward the window. “It’s time.”

“I’m… tired. We should rest and stay with the ship in case we’re found.”

“It’s not safe here,” he said.

She was too tired to argue. He would know, he chose the spot. He let her sit on the floor, leaned against the console, while he gathered rations and other supplies from the store room. When he was done, he threw a small bag onto the floor beside her.

“On your feet. We need to leave.”

She complied. He lowered the hatch and they peered out into the sunlight, and she surveyed the surroundings. The ragged shoreline of the islands on either side of the land bridge they’d landed on was rocky. Trees and shrubby grasses had found purchase between cracks.

He glanced quickly, as if to orient himself, and strode down the incline. Rey followed, and at the bottom was surprised to find her boots submerged to the top of her feet in water.

“Get off, I need to close it.” he said.

“Wasn’t this dry when we landed?”

“The tide was out. It’ll be coming back in soon.”

“That might damage the ship!”

“Does that matter? I thought it was wrecked.”

She jogged over to the cracked engine to assess the full damage. He ambled after her.

“Can it be fixed?” he asked.

A smile slowly spread over her face, blooming into a full grin. “Yes. The navigation’s shot, but I could fix the engine with just the standard welder that comes in the repair kit. We could drain some of the extra coolant from the other three engines and get this one going. If I work through the night, we’d be able to make it around this star system. Maybe the next closest one, too, if it’s nearby. We might not be completely stranded.” She beamed and turned toward him.

“How fortunate,” he said. She heard the crack of Luke’s lightsaber as he flicked it on, and she instinctively grasped for Kylo’s saber, still tucked in her belt, while she circled out of his reach.

But she was not the target. Kylo Ren thrust his lightsaber straight into the engine before she’d had time to deploy the saber in her hands. He smashed them two more times, beating them as if he were holding a massive club, and the metal on the wing and engine screeched and boiled where the saber cut through. Rey stood in fighting stance, saber ready, waiting for him to strike at her. Instead, his assault on the C-Wing ended abruptly, and he flicked the weapon off.

“How long will it take now?” He seemed merely genially interested.

Her lip trembled in frustration. “I don’t know. More than two weeks.”

“Need any tools which we don’t have? Will fresh water damage it beyond repair?”

She considered lying to him, but did not. “No. Both no.”

“I hope you’ll let me assist you so I can learn to do such extensive repairs. It should be fascinating. It will have to wait for tomorrow. We’ve got to make camp.”

“We’re not going to your Master?”

He laughed. “He’s not on this backwater. When I tell him I don’t have the map, he’ll want me to return to complete my training. If I obtain it, my training will be considered complete with a few formalities left.”

She tensed, recalling his previous interrogation.

“Consider the matter dropped unless you choose to give me the map. But that’s a tertiary consideration.”

“Should you be training me like this if you haven’t completed your training?”

“No. But my Master has not forbidden it, and he won’t have the opportunity to while we are stranded with a hopelessly broken ship and no communications.”

Her eyes darted between him and the battered C-Wing.

“Are-- are you _hiding_ me fr--”

“I am sure I have no idea what you are implying. Think carefully before you accuse me of treason. Move out.”

They were in the middle of two islands, and the water was rising quickly enough to be noticeable. He considered both, mumbling under his breath, before deciding on the smaller one.

—

The planet’s sun had begun to set by the time they made it half-way up a rocky hill. Rey looked back at the C-Wing. The very top of it peeked out from the still water from the lake. They’d filled their canteens and hurriedly rinsed their hands and faces of one another’s blood. The air was cool but musty with the smell of mossy spores. There were a few flies. One landed on Rey, and she swatted it when it bit her.

“Salt flies” said Kylo Ren. “They’re not looking for blood, they just probe everything they land on.”

“Well at least it had good intentions,” she bit back. There weren’t a lot of them, thankfully. They were fat and slow, and easy to brush off.

The opposite side of the island had level patch of rock bookended by the shoreline and a steep but short cliff, perhaps three men high. Kylo Ren glanced over at Rey, and they silently agreed it was a good place to camp and unshouldered their bags. 

Ren shook, unscrewed, and placed a device called a camp stove on the ground, closer to the cliff than the shore. It unfurled itself into a squat metal cylinder the size of a medium campfire. The center cooking surface glowed faintly with an electric light. It would collapse when it ran out of power. It was not as hot as a fire. The edges of the stove were cool enough to lean against, but the very center was hot enough to boil a pot of water on.

That would stay hot for three days. They had four camp stoves for twelve days of heat. They’d have to collect wood to burn if they were not gone by then.

“We should camp closer to the ship tomorrow.”

“You’re injured,” he said. “You’re going to take a day or two and rest, and this is the best spot to do it. I must admit, despite your enthusiasm,” he rolled the word around in his mouth “when you healed me, I’ve lost a lot of blood and it’s not all restored. I could use the time myself.”

“That is a lot of time to plan to be marooned without working toward getting out of here.”

“I’m not marooned. I’ve lived here.”

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. He continued, “This archipelago doesn’t have any natural predators. All the animals are non-sentient and edible. But very friendly, which is why they’re a lot more scarce than they were before I spent a few years here.” 

He leaned close, conspiratorially, as if the trees could hear him. “The plants are mostly poisonous, though. Including some of the wood you’d burn if you don’t treat it right. If you know the place like I do, it’s easy to survive. And I know how to get out of here if I have to. You’re marooned. It’ll be very uncomfortable to be completely dependent on me for your survival. If I were you, I’d watch me very carefully.”

“Y-you could just heal me now so I can get right to repairing ship in the morning.”

He scoffed. “We are not Jedi. We are friends with our discomfort. We keep it close. We don’t allow it to destroy us, but when it is with us, we are hospitable. We’re thankful for our pain, because without it we wouldn’t know what destroys us. We’re thankful for our hunger because we’d never know what fills us.” He sat and pulled two rations out of his bag and threw one to her. He rehydrated his own from his canteen, which he’d drawn straight from the lake. 

“Oh, and the pathogens here didn’t evolve to attack humans. So you just have to come to me for food once the rations are gone and I probably won’t let you starve to death,” he said earnestly.

His manners while eating weren’t any more refined than hers. He tore through his ration quickly and refilled his canteen twice drinking from it. He stood and returned to fill it a third time with his bag in hand, and once he’d done it he removed his belt and placed the lightsaber in the bag. He pulled the knit robe off of him, and the one-piece layer beneath it. He was stripped to his last layer, a thin undyed garment that covered him from his knees to his shoulders, but left his legs and arms exposed. The entire right side of it was stained and caked with dark, clotted blood. He, sighed, resigned, and waded into the water to his waist while unbuttoning the offensively soiled garment.

“HEY.” shouted Rey.

“You are welcome to join me. My blood doesn’t smell any sweeter rotting on your skin.” he bent and scrubbed his underwear in the water with his fingernails.

“ABSOLUTELY NOT.”

“Are we going to bicker over whether and where I get to bathe, now? I haven’t slept in two days.” He threw his undergarment onto the shore and ducked under the water to wet his hair.

“If you don’t want to fight, why do you have to be so offensive about everything?”

“Because you have expectations which lend themselves to easy violation.”

“Like not murdering anyone, that expectation?”

“Most of yours are a little fussier than that, but all of them are matters out of your control. It is foolish that you try anyway,” he waded out of the water.

His wet hair no longer hid his ears, which stuck out. His face was dominated by a prominent and long nose, and a wide, sensitive mouth. The angles of his face and odd proportions of his long limbs, large hands and feet, and broad shoulders were assembled with an ineffable wrongness. Rather than making him ugly, it gave him a physicality which demanded attention with every new movement. Even watching him stoop to pick something up— a survival blanket— was like watching him invent and master the act in that moment. His look was distinct to himself, and despite herself, Rey found it fascinating to watch him.

She saw his backside and the shadow of his private area before he wrapped the blanket around himself. She jerked her head upwards to avert her eyes. He pretended not to notice.

“Clean your clothes and yourself before you sleep,” he said, “That’s an order. There aren’t any pathogens evolved for us here, but we brought our own with us. Hygiene is still imperative to your survival.”

“You’ve shown off,” she motioned in the general direction of his genitals and backside, “and now it’s my turn?”

He seemed genuinely offended. “I am a commander of soldiers from an Order of knights, and I am training another soldier how to survive here _by example_ because she will not obey even _reasonable_ commands. I’m not inventing excuses to see that soldier’s _tits_. Don’t stare at me when I bathe if the sight offends you. I’m going to bed.” 

He began assembling his cot. She stamped away and grabbed her bag, fishing out her blanket as she approached the shore. She wrapped herself in it and undressed under it, then wrapped herself in her dirty garments and dropped the blanket by the shore. She waded in far enough to cover her breasts, and scrubbed her tunic, pants, and undergarment between her hands. Nothing could ever fully lift the dark stain of blood off off her pale tunic, but they came reasonably clean.

She watched him while he finished assembling his bed, and then started on a second one across the stove from him. He didn’t so much as glance at her. She searched the Force for signs of surveillance, and found nothing.

It was well and truly night-time, and still as bright as early twilight. The sky was illuminated by the rings they had crashed through and a close moon. Here and there, once every minute or two, a shooting star burned out in the atmosphere. Only the brightest stars were visible. Even a more competent navigator than she would not have been able to tell where they were in the galaxy from the visible features of the night sky.

She laid out her clothes to dry, carefully staying covered as much as she could, but it still left her only the blanket. She decided to wear her wet undergarment rather than rely on her blanket to preserve her modesty in her sleep. It was still somewhat transparent while damp, so she wrapped her blanket around her.

He glanced over at her as she approached the stove and their cots. He was seated on his own cot, with his blanket around his waist, stretching his shoulders and finishing his canteen before he laid down on a hard cot.

“I’m sorry I insulted your professionalism,” she said, “It was not warranted.”

He scoffed. “Why would you apologize?”

“I was wrong. I’m acknowledging it. I misjudged you because I hate you. I was wrong.”

“Is being unfair to your enemies a problem?”

“My clouded judgement only harms me. My… discomfort with you should be my friend, but I shouldn’t let it make me weak. ”

His face softened. “That’s good. Very good. Your initiative to apply your lessons will make you an easy Padawan.”

She had learned a great deal from him, she realized, some of which he’d intended to teach her. She’d heard of the Force from Maz, but she’d practiced and understood its use only from his example. When had his instruction started, she wondered. After they’d landed here? During their escape from the Starkiller? Perhaps even her interrogation?

She pursed her lips and bowed slightly. Whatever else he was, he was her teacher, and deserved some respect for that.

“Good night, Master.”

He concealed his shock poorly and hurriedly returned the bow. She turned to go to her cot.

“I’m—” he called after her, “I am sorry Han Solo is dead.” His voice betrayed genuine anguish, and the words hung there for a moment. He added, hurriedly, “Only because it hurts you. I don’t get anything from hurting you.”

She turned back toward him. “You don’t think you were wrong to kill him?”

“No.” He looked down at his hands. “I also don’t hate you, which I _am_ sorry for,” he said, gently.

She ran her hand over her face and neck and turned back around. “I am going to bed now. Don’t peek at my… ‘tits’ in my sleep.”

He was relieved for the change of topic even as he sneered at the one she chose. “Don’t stare at my backside when I’m awake and you have a deal.”

She waved him off behind her back lazily, the way she would dismiss a nagging salt fly, lay down, and pulled the blanket over her head.


	4. Chapter 4

Rey woke up to an odd scraping noise next to her head.  She turned peeled her eyes open.  Kylo Ren was sitting next to her cot.  He was dressed except for his belt, which he had across his knee.  He was using the unfinished leather on the inside to polish the rust off of a very small hand-axe.

She looked up at the sky.  She had slept past morning and afternoon to early evening, and the ship was surely submerged.

She rubbed the sleep from her eyes.  “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“I beg your pardon?”  He stopped his work to look at her.

“Why didn’t you wake me?  It’s late.”

“I thought it was intentional.  It was a wise decision, given your injuries, to rest rather than tinker with trash.”

“That sounds more like you than me,” she said.  He smirked.

She propped herself up on her elbow.  “Was that on the C-Wing?”

“Do you want to know if we kept a tiny rusted axe in a New Order ship?” He held it up for her inspection.  His large hands make it look ridiculous.  He’d nearly restored its head to its original luster.

“Then where?”

He glanced over at her.  “There’s one with your name on it on the other island.  This one’s mine.”

She rolled her eyes at him.  “Well, I’m glad you didn’t trouble yourself on my account.”

“Training starts tomorrow.  Get it then, if you want.”

“I’d rather repair the ship.  Could we at least set aside some time for that?”

“That will be part of it.  A good mentor incorporates his student’s boring eccentricities into training.  You have chores you must complete before you work on the ship.”

“What if I’m not done with them before the tide rises?”

“Then it’ll be underwater, which would be inconvenient.  Just go back to bed.”

He pulled a whetstone from his pack.  It, like the axe, was most assuredly not on the C-Wing.

“I thought this place was uninhabited?”

“It is.”

She had the feeling he would not elaborate, and didn’t want to argue.  She stretched her legs and fed herself before settling back down to sleep again.

“If you’re up before me, could you wake me up?”

“No.”  He said.  He handed her his canteen.

“What would you like me to do with this?”

“Drink two or three before you go to bed.  You’ll get up.”

“…Ugh.”

He seemed satisfied with the edge of the axe, finally.  They ate rations for dinner, and went to bed not long after.

—

In the morning, Kylo Ren took her on a walk through the woods.  He pointed out a particular plant with two leaves pushing up through the ground.  He used the axe as a hoe and dug out a large root vegetable.

“If you cut these in quarters and plant them, they’ll grow back.  They’re a good staple.”

“We won’t be here long enough to worry about that, right?”

He didn’t answer.  They filled one of the bags with them.  He had them cut off two sides and re-bury them.

He taught her how to cut wood for a fire by climbing up a tree and cutting off branches no thicker than two finger widths.  He said they needed to dry for a week, and then they’d burn without producing toxic smoke.  He had them get quite a bit to lay out.

They cut reeds from the lake.  He showed her how to peel the bark off and braid it for rope with the edge of the axe, then use the rope to lash the peeled reeds together into panels that could be used to make a structure.  Ren showed her how they’d complete a lean-to using the cliff side as a part of the structure.  By that time it was approaching evening.  They again hadn’t had time to explore beyond the little island.  Ren filled a pot he’d gotten from the C-Wing with the root vegetables, filled the pot with water, and placed it on the camp stove.

“This planet is scarce in salt.  That’s why there are relatively few large fauna here. It’s important to supplement when you don’t have food from offworld, or you will die.”

He pulled out a handful of salt flies he had apparently been collecting, crushed them between his palms, and threw them in the pot.

“Where did you learn all this?”

“It was part of my training.  I thought you’d be squeamish,” he said, disappointed.

“I’ve eaten worse when I didn’t earn my portions for a few days.  You trained like this as a Knight of Ren?”

“No.  A Jedi.  Our Master had been trained in the wilderness and incorporated it into the new Order’s tradition.”

“You were a Jedi?”

“I left before my training was complete.”

She thought.  He had very specific knowledge of the planet.

“Wait, you trained  _here_?”

“Yes.”

“Where is everyone?”  What happened?”

“Gone.  Luke Skywalker wanted to ensure the preservation of the Jedi before he passed away, and believed he needed to train as many Jedi as he could in order to ensure the survival of the Order.   He also spent quite a bit of time away, seeking out records of the old ways which hadn’t been destroyed in the great purge at the dawn of the Empire.  In his weakness and pride, he split too far from tradition.  He delegated responsibilities he should not have.   Master Snoke used his absence and weakness to shepherd a Padawan to the Dark Side.  This was discovered, and it sowed confusion and suspicion within the Jedi Order, which Snoke used to crush them.  Skywalker hid, the last Jedi with no apprentices to succeed him.  I became Apprentice to Master Snoke.”

“And now Snoke’s looking for him to finish it?”

He nodded.  “When he killed my grandfather and his Master, he snuffed out thousands of years of tradition and wisdom.  As long as he exists, he’s a threat.  There are other orders which favor the Dark Side, but none so powerful as the Sith.  The Sith followed the Rule of Two: a Master to hold Power, and an Apprentice to covet it.  The practice of the ways of the Force is all-encompassing, it is not merely these showy tricks.” 

He held his fingers out toward the shoreline, and one of the little waves stopped, as if frozen in time, or turned to glass.  The next washed over it and receded.  He let it go, and it was subsumed into the next wave.

He continued, “The most difficult part is developing your person and spirit as an appropriate vessel for it.   The Rule of Two was a sacrament. It is a sacred mystery, a practice that binds them directly to the fate of the Universe.  The Empire did not conquer to hold the Galaxy, a mere possession, but to bring the Emperor to an ecstatic understanding of the nature of power, and his Apprentice to the understanding of needing it.  Like Skywalker, they did not heed the importance of their own passed-down knowledge, and ensured their own destruction.”

“What didn’t they do?”

“I will tell you that another time.  I will say that I intend for us to remedy it, once this portion of your training is complete.”

“When will that be?”

“Ah, that’s right.  I didn’t mention.  Whenever you manage to get off the planet, your first steps will be complete.  You will be my Apprentice, but no longer my Padawan.”

“I could have started on that today!”

“You wouldn’t have gotten very far without knowing how to make shelter or food.  Anyway, whatever resource you choose to escape is fair game.  Power is power, and the exercise of it is the deepest practice of the Dark Side.  I do suggest you take advantage of this time to learn a few tricks, however.  They are useful, sometimes.”

Kylo Ren mashed the boiled vegetables with a metal spoon, then poured two ladle-fulls in their dishes.  It was gritty and pale.  Rey ate enthusiastically, and Kylo Ren less so.

“I always hated this,” Ren said, “but it’s what’s here.  The texture is awful.”

“It’s edible, and there’s enough of it,” said Rey.

“You have a point.”

“Plus I’ve never had a man cook for me.  It’s interesting,” she said, in mock-flirtation.

He made a face.

“What?” she said.

“I’m eating my least favorite food in the Universe, basically glue, with my student, who hates me; neither of us has seen soap for four days.  It’s a little repulsive to hear you sigh like a doe-eyed virgin about what a man has never done for her before.”

She laughed at him.  “I am  _certain_  that is not how I sounded.  And where did you get virgin?”

He set his spoon on his plate.  “If you’ve had a few sticky fingered encounters with the boys on Jakku, don’t want to hear about it.”

“No, this is funny.  You have a rich inner life, and I am fascinated.  You’ve lived to, what, twenty-five as a monk?  No wonder.”

“I am thirty.”

She frowned.  “Oh.”

“Oh, is that disappointing?  Should I be flattered?  Not age-appropriate for a nineteen year old?” he said.

“I just meant that you have the devastating looks of a man five-sixths your age,” she rolled her eyes. “And I’m twenty, not nineteen.”

“No, you’re nineteen.”

“How would you know?”

“Nineteen is an annoying age.”

“Thirty has no room to talk.”

He snatched her plate from her to wash it and was still seething when he returned, which she enjoyed.  The sun had set, and it was chilly, so the slight warmth from the edge of the stove was pleasant.  He sat next to her, and they looked up at the sky and watched the moon and rim rise.   He pointed at something and she leaned in closer to follow what he was pointing at.    The moon had cast a shadow on the normally glowing rings.   She saw one shooting star, and then another, as the moon knocked debris from the rings into the atmosphere.  They were sitting close enough that he accidentally brushed her hand when he reached for his canteen.  She could feel the heat of his body radiate off of him in the chilly night air.  Rey smiled.

“It’s a pretty place to be stranded at least,” she said.

“Yes.  We aren’t monastics, by the way,” he said.

“Huh?”  she said, annoyed at being distracted from the spectacle in the sky.

“My order.  You and I.  Jedi think they’ve mastered their passions by living outside of them.  We do not.”

“You think you’ve mastered them by letting them overrun you?”

“Not at all.  We are our desires.  Knowing them is mastery.  We can’t be over-run by ourselves, we only become more authentic.”

“I suppose that makes a twisted sense.”

He looked down from the sky, and over at her.

“Sex is not the most… universal drive.  Hunger is a more basic drive to power.  Survival, escape from pain, is universal.  But any drive is potentially instructive.  When someone rejects the sophistry of the Light, the weak will derisively call their enlightenment a ‘seduction.’”

She laughed.  “So I just need to finger the hilt of your lightsaber”  she bit her lip at him, “and then I can move boulders and conquer galaxies.  When do we start?”

She felt a disturbance in the Force, like a heart skipping a beat.  It continued, quieter, but steady.  It was the same as when she’d fought him on the Starkiller.  She’d struck on something.  From the look on his face, he knew she’d felt it.  He looked as if he’d been caught at something.

“Now?  Would you like that?” he said.

“What?” she scoffed.

“You’re teasing me because I’m uncomfortable when you do it.  You’re enjoying it.  You think you have my scent, and you’re playing with me.”

“You’ve made me uncomfortable.”

“You’re returning the favor?”

“Absolutely.”

“So you’ve seen you get a reaction, and you enjoy it.  What do you think that reaction is?  Disgust?  Repression?  Guilt?”  He leaned in close, his breath brushed over the little hairs on her temple. “What part of me do you think you’re fingering now?”

She turned her head toward his, teeth bared, and his eyes looked up to meet hers. “I’m sure I have no idea,” she said.  His pulse grew louder in her ears.

“I could take whatever I want.”

She shook with rage.  “No.  You could not.”

“Why not?”

“Because I would kill you first.”

He nodded.  His breathing was slow and heavy, his heart as loud to her as the waves that lapped against the rocks.  The skin on his neck flushed.  “Yes.  I believe that.  I shouldn’t risk it.  But maybe I’ve thought about this ever since I had you in restraints, and I felt how your heart beat when I showed you my face.  When I woke up with your hands inside of me, helpless and delirious with pleasure, maybe I wanted to make you feel the same way so you wouldn’t have that power over me.  If I wanted you so badly I’d risk my own destruction to touch you, how would that make you feel?”

“Is this why you’ve been so strange about… this kind of thing?  You, you’ve chased me, threatened me.  You’ve killed my friends.  You knew me before I wanted you to.  You’ve dangled what I want in front of me like a treat for an animal.  You have to control  _everything_. It drives you crazy I can say ‘no’ to  _anything_  and there’s nothing you can do.  It makes you mad I know it.”

“How do you feel?” he said, lowly.

“Powerful.”  she held her chin up, her lips pressed in satisfaction.

He blinked, and it was as if he’d taken off a mask.  The color in his face and neck returned to normal in a second, and the tension in his face returned to placid indifference.  His heartbeat went silent once more to her.

“Good.  Remember that feeling,” he said.

He stood up and stretched, lazily walking slowly toward his cot.

“W-what,” she said, almost laughing in disbelief.

“I’m going to sleep.  It’s getting late.  We’ll move boulders and conquer galaxies tomorrow.”

“Did you…  _lie_  to me?”

“I walked you through an exercise.  I tailored it to your desires, not to mine.  Meditate on it, and tell me what you’ve learned.  But not tonight.”

He would not say anything further.

—

Rey did not meditate on it in the morning.  She put the matter of the previous night out of her mind, and Kylo Ren did not press it.  Their survival chores went more quickly; she meant to get to the ship that day and plan out her repairs.   He showed her a few more plants and how to make them edible.  The lower branches of the trees near them had been stripped of the smaller branches already.  She climbed up on his back to reach the first branch, and then jumped and hauled herself to a second, hacked away the smaller offshoots and threw them down to him. She stood.  There was another large branch out of her reach, and no purchase to climb to it.

“It’s just a little bit too far, I’m going to have to come down and try the next tree.”

“I thought you were in a hurry?”

“I am.”

“Then just jump.”

“I can’t make it.”

“I’m sure you could.”

He sucked the inside of his teeth and folded his arms.  She looked back up at the branch.

“Oh.”  She frowned and concentrated… and jumped—

— fell

—and felt a sudden jerk as she stopped, midair just short of landing on the ground.  Kylo Ren dropped his outstretched hand, and she fell the rest of the distance.  The axe she’d been using had fallen a short distance away, and he pulled it to him.

“I’ll let you hit next time,” he said.

“Why didn’t that work?”

“You tried too hard, for one.  For another, where did you draw your power from?  Pain?  Frustration?”

“I’m— I’m fine today.  Nothing hurts.  What am I supposed to do if I’m fine?”

“You could hurt yourself,” he gestured with the axe, “although long term that’s not a good idea.”

“What do you do?”

“I have a well of experiences to draw from.  As do you.  Now, cut the branches.”

She held out her hand for the axe.  He didn’t give it to her.

“Cut the branches,” he said.

Rey turned and looked up at the tree.  She screwed up her eyes to focus on the branch.  In her mind, she conjured up the image of the ship that departed Jakku as a girl, and Unkaar Platt’s heavy hand on her shoulder.  She thought of the years that junk merchant had held scarcity above her head.  He’d known she wouldn’t leave even if she could.  He just took pleasure in watching her continued desperation.  She thought of his face, and drew her hand through the air as if to slap it.

A dozen little branches snapped and fell to the ground, and she and Kylo Ren gathered them.

—

That day, and for the following nine days, they went to the C-Wing.  She retrieved a pencil and pad, and an engineering manual.  She’d slowly peeled away the outer layers of the casing around the engine, and then re-assembled them hurriedly to protect them from the rising water each evening.  At night, they’d meditate, or he’d show her a trick and she’d copy it.  They hadn’t had time to explore the larger island on the other side of the land bridge.  She jotted down some math and finally arrived at her conclusion.

“Damn,” she said.

“What?”

“It’s better than it looks, but it’s a problem.  The wing damage is superficial, it’ll cause drag within the atmosphere, but the structure will hold.  It’ll get us through a couple takeoffs and landings.  We can ignore it.”

She pointed at the engine with her pencil.

“The sub-light engine is another issue.  Since we don’t have stellar navigation, and I don’t even know how I’d begin to repair that, the ion engine is useless.  I can use the electrics from it to repair what you broke.  The rest is just patching the holes and filling it with coolant from the other engines.  Two hours.  Easy.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Well, I have a welding kit, but no material to make a patch with, first.  But second, assuming I do, once I tear a hole in the hyperdrive to get the electrics out, that hatch won’t be water tight, and the barrier between that engine and the computer keeps radiation out, not water.  The computer would be toast.  We could do it and then take off immediately, but  That repair will optimistically take ten hours.”

“Low tide lasts seven and a half.”

She shook her head “It’s not worth the risk.”

“Repair what you can and then you’ll solve the next problem.  What would you do if you were on Jakku?”

She laughed.  “On Jakku there’s no tide, and I could scavenge for parts.”

She sighed in frustration and looked across the horizon.  Water lapped at the soles of her boots.   She picked up the bundle of lumber she’d lashed together from her morning chores and hauled it over her shoulder to lift it out of the rising tide.  Ren did the same, and adjusted his belt.  He had Luke’s saber tucked into it next to their one axe.  She looked at the axe, then across the water to the larger island.

She pointed at the axe and said, “You said there was another one of those?  What else is there?”

The corners of his mouth lifted, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes.

—

They did not have to discuss how she intended to use the next day when they returned to camp: they would explore the large island at day break.  As soon as they returned, Kylo started a fire, preserving the last camp stove in case of emergency.  They’d fallen into a routine.   He would cook while she worked on the lean-to structure from reeds and rope, and he would occasionally give a word or two of correction.  They’d made a reasonably water-proof section for the roof by shrinking the lashed together reeds into a solid sheet by wetting them then leaving them to dry, and then shellacking them with tree sap.  It was sticky, hot work.  She left the now-waterproof sheet to dry, and he walked over to inspect her work.

He nodded.  “The rainy season will be in three months.  You’ll be happy to have a dry place to sleep.”

She felt a sharp pain in her stomach at the thought of being there that long.

He returned to cooking.  She grabbed her blanket and walked over to the lake to wash off before dinner.   As usual, she kept her underclothes on, and left her outer clothes on the rocks to dry, then wrapped herself in her blanket to preserve her modesty.  It was not as hot or dry as Jakku, but she’d protected herself less from the sun, and her limbs had darkened and freckled. The blood stains on her clothes had begun to bleach from drying in the sun after many washes.  Ren’s clothes had bleached slightly as well, from an inky black that once matched his belt to a very dark gray.   He’d taken white bandages and the needle and thread from the medical kit to repair his underclothes, and they peeked out from the tear in his outer garments whenever he he bent just so.

He served them their food, while she undid the knots in her hair and ran her fingers through it to encourage it to dry faster.  He stared at her.

“Hm?”  she said.

“Have you reflected on our exercise?”

She twisted the hair on the crown of her head into the first knot.  “We’ve had a few.  Which one?”  she didn’t put the energy in to feign ignorance well.  He continued to stare at her.

“Whichever comes to mind.”

She finished tying her hair out of the way, and shoveled food in her mouth.  “I think you were lying,” she said, her mouth half-full.  

“About what?”

“…’Wanting’ me.  I think you wanted me to feel like I had control over something, so you could take it back.  I think you wanted me to feel what it was like to have some power over you, and then see it slip away.  I think sex was just the topic.  You could have done it with food, too, like my boss on Jakku.”

“That’s some fair insight.  So was the power you had less real, because I was lying?”

“I don’t know.”

“Consult your feelings.”

She put down her plate and spoon and concentrated, then frowned.  The memory played back in her head.  Something about him in her memory felt… off, like listening to a familiar tune played back off-key.   It was near the tune, but it was not the tune.  Her satisfaction in her power, however, rang true.

“No, it was real.  I had you.”

He put down his plate and knelt in front of her.

“How did I slip out of your fingers?  You are right, I have chased you through the woods like a monster.  Coerced you into doing what I want.  I have enjoyed having power over you.”

Her eyes darted back and forth as she replayed their previous interaction.

“You really were uncomfortable I was… flirting.”  She disliked the word, but there it was.

“Very.  And I brought it up again for myself, because it was uncomfortable.”

“To make friends with it?  To… pound the wound?”

He nodded.  “I used my self-knowledge and my knowledge of you, my adversary, to turn my weakness against you and rob you of your satisfaction.  Stamp out your weakness, but while it is with you, it is a tool.  If your enemy strikes you, let him believe he’s struck your right hand and not your left, then destroy him.”

“So you were only half-lying.”

… And there his pulse was, again, churning little ripples through the Force.

“The lesson is finished.”

He rocked back on his heels to stand, but she grabbed his wrist.  “Wait.  I’m not,” she said.  

He set his jaw.  She pressed down lightly on him with the Force, not strong enough to prevent him from standing, but enough to show her intention to do so if he moved.

“You will let me go, Rey.”  it was the soft, dulcet tone of a mind-trick.  She shrugged it off.  Her eyes fluttered as she read the surface of his feelings.  She felt a Dark power coil at the base of her spine and crawl upwards toward her heart, its venom seeping into her marrow.

“You… admire me?”

“You’re finished, Rey.”  he said, more firmly.

She cast the blanket off of her.  Her undergarment clung to her, and showed the shadow of her breasts and dark nipples.  He refused to look down.

“This is what you want, right?” she said.  She placed his palm over her breast, and leaned into him.  She pressed her forehead against his.

“No,” he said.  His breathing became labored.

“Why isn’t it?  I see it, in your head.  You want it desperately.  You want me to want it.”

He pressed his lips together as he resisted her scan, but bits and pieces flickered through like plasma boiling on a star.  She teased around the edges of his mind and waited for what she wanted to surface.

“You don’t think I can really consent, do you?”

“You’re my student.  I’m your captor.  You detest me.”

“You made me call you ‘Master.’  You’ve isolated me, at your mercy.  I  _am_  your student, and you  _are_  my Master.  While we’re on this planet, you think anything that could happen would be you coercing me, or me coercing you.  You want an equal.  A  _consort_.  This isn’t what you want.”

“No.  It’s not what I want.  We have work to do here, Rey.  We have a purpose.”

“I could ruin it.  If I kissed you, you’d surrender to it, and I’d defeat you.  I promise we’d enjoy it.  Anything you want, I’d obey you, just tell me how to escape from here.  I know you have a backup plan.  Give it to me.”

He jerked his head up, straining under her assault of his mind.

“Would you forgive me if I kissed you?” she said.

“Never.”

She leaned forward to whisper something to him—

— and she suddenly flew backward, into the wall of the cliff, and fell onto the rock below.  She brought herself up on her elbow and looked up.  He stood and drew his lightsaber— his own from his belt, and flicked it on.  He held out his off-hand again, and she felt all her muscles stiffen as a bolt of dark energy ripped through her.  He pointed the weapon at her.

“Stay down,”  he bellowed.

She tried to resist, but half of her muscles were locked and all were screaming in pain.  She could do nothing but comply.

He held the tip of his blade to her face her eyes flicked between it and him.  She gazed up at him defiantly.

“You have made yourself strong with the Dark Side.   You will defeat me one day, Padawan.   Not today.  Kneel.”

She rolled over painfully and slowly pulled herself up onto one knee.  He moved the blade to her neck and placed his left on her forehead, with his ungloved thumb pressed between her eyebrows.

“I anoint you, Rey, to the Knights of Ren, and as my true Apprentice and successor.  I vow wherever I go, you will go.  Whenever I fall, you will rise.  Repeat it.”

“I vow wherever you go, I will go.  Whenever you fall, I will rise.”

“Rise Rey, Knight of Ren.”

She rose.  He flicked off the lightsaber, stowed it in his belt.  He helped her steady herself, lightly held her upper arms in an almost fatherly gesture.  He looked into her face with some concern.  She nodded to show she was all right, and he gave her a very thin smile.

“Well done. You’ve laid the right foundation.  I’m proud of you.”

She knew in that instant that she had meant her vow to him.  She would go anywhere he went, done anything to make him proud again, and felt ashamed she could not hate him enough to kill the ardor of her admiration.  She could have killed him for it.

She finally understood.


	5. Part 5

Rey woke up sore. After the conflict of the previous night, she’d had so much trouble walking that Kylo had wrapped her in a blanket and carried her. His clothes and hair were permeated with the smell of the camp fire and his own sweat.

She’d fallen asleep before he did, and she woke before he did, curled up on her side, facing the fire. She opened her eyes to see he’d dragged his cot between hers and the now dim embers of the fire pit. He was asleep on his stomach, his head turned toward her. He had elected to sleep in his underclothes, and she could see the lines of his shoulders through the thin garment. The cots were designed with smaller frames than his in mind. He slept with one arm dangling off the edge, and with his feed overhanging the ground.

Eventually, his eyes slowly opened under his wavy hair. They stared for a while with an ease Rey felt surreal, as if each were watching the other sleep. He lifted the dangling arm and rested his fingertips on the edge of her cot, near where her fingers were curled up. Very carefully, she ran her hand along the coarse fabric of her bed until the tips of their fingers touched. He blinked languidly.

Finally, he inhaled deeply and pulled his hand back to stretch his shoulder and sit up. He ran his hand over his face and neck. He had shaved twice the first week they were there, once with a hand axe and once with a utility knife, but had grown frustrated without the assistance of a mirror.

“I think I have a beard now,” he said.

She nodded. “It’s official. Don’t like it?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen the damn thing.” He ran the back of his hand under his chin.

She nodded, her face still resting on her cot. “I would have been happy to help.”

He laughed, a single quick chuff of air, and drew his finger across his neck. “I bet.”

“At least you’d die for a higher purpose.”

He nodded, conceding the point.

“We could rest a day or two. If you like. We can take our time,” he said.

“I’m fine.” She sat up slowly. “Mostly. I’d like to see if there’s any scrap on the large island.”

He nodded. He stared off into the distance at something only he could see.

“Listen,” she said, “last night was… a lot.”

He looked sideways at her.

“I shouldn’t have…” she said and stopped. “I don’t think I saw you as a… person. Before. Or last night.”

“I haven’t had much practice being a person lately. Easy mistake.”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever feel OK about what I did.”

He shrugged it off. “You saw a weakness and you struck. You had every right to. What you feel is a call toward the Light. The Dark is welcoming, but the Light is jealous. It requires your pain as penance, but denies you the right to use it to make you strong.”

“How do I fight it?”

“Remember this feeling now. Your disgust with yourself. It would only magnify if you turned away now. It will prevent you from being tempted from the path.”

He reached out his hand to her, palm up. She reached out to him, and he held her hand in his hands.

“You will do… many things. I used to look back at the direction I took, and imagine what would have happened if I could turn back down the road, go the other way. I thought of my other ‘selves’ as friends. As time went on, I looked far across the parallel roads to the other ‘I’s who traveled them, they became strangers to me, and we became strangers to the boy who took the first fork. And then I realized, they had never been my friends. They were my victims.” his eyes moved back and forth. “Eventually, the road will narrow, and there will only be one path.”

“Is that where you are now?”

“I am very close” he said, quietly. He lifted his hand to her mouth, kissed the back of it, then tapped it before standing up.

She laughed. “Not even going to pretend?”

“Not much point. Who would I fool?”

“If you want to make a grand, gentlemanly gesture which would make me truly happy, you could always tell me where you’ve hidden your shuttle?”

“That is a very good guess, and completely wrong. There is no shuttle.” He gave her a broad, lopsided grin, boyish grin. She blinked, and a moment later, remembered to breathe.

Oh no, she thought.

—

They went straight to the other island after eating, as soon as the tide was low enough to walk across the land bridge. It would be just as easy to gather wood and food on the other island, and it was larger. They took their boots off and walked barefoot in water that covered the tops of their feet, past the C-Wing, then kicked the water off their feet at the other side.

He paused at the shore, and she stopped next to him.

“You first,” he said.

She looked up at the steep dome of rock and the forest on top of it. It’d take days to explore the place completely.

“I’m not sure what I expected.”

“What do you know about this place?”

“There was a Jedi temple here.”

“Force users leave a wake behind them, when they stay in a place long.”

“What should I do?”

He shrugged. “Look for it.”

She tried one of the meditation techniques they’d tried. She listened to the waves on the rock and changes in the air, and matched her breathing to their pace. She felt the rock beneath her, and their mutual gravitational pull. Slowly, as her mind unfocused and she peered back in time, a fuzzy double-image layed itself over the top of the world, in a blue, ghostly, flame-like image.

She heard voices from the beach along the right side of the dome, loud enough to hear. She thought she knew the language, but the syllables twisted in hear ear and refused to become coherent.

“This way…” she said. She followed their direction. 

In front of her, a strange, tunnel-like shape appeared in front of her, as if made of mist. It undulated. If she concentrated, she could pick out the after image of dozens of individual ghostly shapes walking the same path, and as she unfocused slightly they melded back into the mist. As she turned, she saw mist winding up the side of the hill. There was a foot path up with carved steps, well hidden under the brush and grass which had crept into the cracks.

It was an easy climb, but as they walked the trail began to fade a little. She unfocused more, and her own sense of time started slipping. Trees became strangely shaped as they rippled simultaneously between saplings, full grown trees, and cracked, uprooted husks which were lit from all directions but below. They were made of a light blue mist. She paused to catch her breath, and looked behind her. 

Kylo Ren’s face ebbed and flowed. In the same space as Kylo Ren, she thought she the ghost of a bearded man with creases at the corners of his eyes and the corners of his mouth, and not between his brows. He was not Kylo Ren, but could have been his brother. She saw a clean-shaven man with a great, angry burn slashed across his face. The kind-faced man reached for her hand, and she held hers out to him. He smiled, and it passed through and he continued walking through her just as Kylo Ren grabbed her hand. The scarred man stared through her, then faded as her Kylo Ren’s image stabilized.

“I’m here” he said.

“What’s here?” her voice trembled.

“More of the answer you’re looking for. Don’t be afraid.”

“I can’t… I can’t feel my way back. I don’t know how to get back from here.”

“I know the way. Just keep going. We’re almost there.”

She screwed up her courage and looked back up the path. She took a step, but he held her back.

“Are we going?”

“Just… let me look at you for a moment.”

She stood on the step above him. They were nearly eye to eye. She swallowed.

“We’ll be leaving soon,” he said. “You might not come with me. When the time comes.”

Her heart pounded in her chest. She gave the faintest of nods. He cupped her face in his hands, his fingers hooked behind the corner of her jaw. His expression contorted with barely contained grief, and a loneliness she recognized because she had held her face the same way countless times. He tilted his head and leaned in.

“I’m sorry,” he said. She nodded.

His lips pressed firmly against the corner of her mouth. Her breath jerked and she wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders, pressing into a full on kiss. He moved his arm to her back, and they pressed themselves, chest to chest, together, in the twilight world, only them and a thousand years of ghostly histories past and never.

Suddenly, she saw something else.

A map of the galaxy, and a jagged, missing piece. She pulled away from him. Breathing heavily.

“I’m sorry,” she said. He shook his head. It was like he didn’t even know.

“No, it’s—”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I just….”

He raised his eyebrows and smiled at her and bent slightly, as if he had been stabbed. He either knew, or was about to know. She had taken it, it was an accident, and she couldn’t bear to explain to him she hadn't tried to use him. She started to pull away.

“Wait, Rey, it’s—“

She pushed him away, and she watched him shatter as she fell backwards through, and a thousand Kylo Rens— and hers— jumped after her to catch her.

—

There is a theory that all possible worlds are as real as the actual world. If that were true, then it would stand to reason that as well as branching futures, there might be possible pasts, as important as the past which linearly caused the present. A million possibilities snaking their way to the same moment. The great gravity well of a moment that pulls the smaller orbiting bodies of free will toward it inexorably, and which only the strongest momentums can escape. 

So, patterns repeat themselves. Light battles Dark. Apprentices conquer their Masters. Sons bury their fathers. Families play a variation of the same mistakes. But some events are constant.

As every Rey ever born fell, every Ben Solo jumped to catch her, and the weight of it tore a hole in time.

—

Ben Solo was 14. He snapped awake and sat up, panting. He was in his quarters, at the Jedi school. He had had… a nightmare? He didn’t remember anything, it just felt the same as waking from a night terror, all adrenaline and tangy taste of fear in his mouth. He felt his nose, and discovered it was bleeding.

He heard the door crack open, and squinted his eyes in the candle light. Luke’s face was illuminated. He had a full beard he’d grown to cover light scarring on his face from when he’d been mauled on Hoth. He had grayed at the temples, but his beard was still a sandy brown. The metal hand holding the candle reflected the dancing flame.

Luke nodded. “I feel it too. There’s been a planetary disaster. We’re going to give aid.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. I’ll explain on the way, just get anything we can’t buy at the jump station.”

Ben stared off into space, trying to pinpoint it. Something was behind his eyes, staring out with him. He felt his face. It felt like a mask of his own skin.

“Something’s not right. That’s not all.”

“We’ll discuss it on the way. Let’s go, Ben.”

“Yes, Master.”

The crept out into the night air. It was raining lightly. Ben’s Cabin was on the main island, near the main lecture hall, training hall, and library of the Academy. Luke had selfishly had his office and quarters placed in the library so he didn’t have to go out in the chill to get something to read.

“Does anyone know we’re going?”

“Kontra told me.”

Ben nodded. Kontra was a Padawan and an assistant in the library, so she had gotten the information directly from their archivist. Luke had assembled a very small permanent faculty of Force sensitive individuals to administer the daily activities of the Academy, so he was free to take the older Padawans out on ranging expeditions and search for lore lost in the Great Purge at the dawn of the Empire.

The shuttle on the pad behind the training hall was not light-jump capable. Depending on the schedule, there were two planets in adjacent systems with available transport. It was between a nine and fourteen day journey. Luke, however, took them into orbit and had them wait to save time. He was having a friend meet them.

Ben was not looking forward to seeing him.

—

They docked inside the Eravana. Luke opened the hatch and looked back at Ben in the second mate’s chair in the cockpit.

“No” mouthed Ben. Luke faced back out. Ben watched as Luke held out his hand, and Ben’s father clasped it, pulled Luke in, and clapped him on the back.

“Maker, you got old. How the hell you been?”

Luke laughed. “Swell, just busy.”

“Well, get less busy, it’s been too long.”

The Wookie also bellowed his hellos. He pulled Luke in too close and swayed this way and that, and Luke pounded on his chest for air and came up laughing. He cleared his throat and gestured with his head toward Ben. Han looked over at him and swallowed.

“Oh, hi, uh, Son.”

“Hi.”

“Been a while.”

“Three years, five months.”

“Ah. You’ve been, uh, studying? You good at it?”

Ben thumbed at his nose in irritation.

“I mean, uh, I don’t know about this… stuff. That was more your, uh, mom’s side’s thing.”

“I know, I know, I know,” said Ben, under his breath.

They’d had almost the same conversation when he was eleven, and the same when he was nine, and at eight, and at seven, and every time they had it, more time passed before they had to have it again. Han would say he was proud, and Ben would know it was a lie because he had no idea what Ben had done he could be proud of.

Hello, bellowed Chewbacca, in blissful ignorance of the subtleties of human awkward pauses.

“Hi,” Ben bit out. Greeting completed, Chewbacca headed back toward the cockpit of the Eravana to set a course.

—

Phthalo was a little blue world mostly known for its fishing, artists, and merchants. It was populous, and its people welcoming. Many people arrived as tourists and did not leave, and Phthalo did not make them. Its only claim to fame was being beautiful and densely populated. It was not by any means a military target.

And yet.

—

“Three weeks ago, there was a magnetic disturbance around Phthalo,” said Luke. “Ships tried to get through, but were repelled.”

“Their own planetary shields?”

Luke nodded. “Hacked. Several heavy cruisers were spotted within the orbit of the Planet. They didn’t respond to any communications, and actively disrupted communication and shot down smaller ships until the big guns arrived. They got whatever it is they wanted and jumped once the shield was down. They made several trips per day down to the surface.”

He brought up a hologram of the world. “Their capital and these cities” he pointed “were razed. No ultimatums, no explanation, nothing.”

He pointed at one more “this, the second largest city, appears to have seen some ground troops before it was razed. Witnesses say they were in a hurry to leave before the Republic’s military mobilized so this district,” he zoomed in, “is mostly intact. However, soldiers were spotted raiding there.”

“Whatever they wanted was in that city,” said Han. He set his jaw.

“Why’d they kill the rest?” asked Ben.

Misdirection, grunted Chewbacca. Luke nodded.

“They don’t want anyone to know why they did it.”

“Then this is more of a… fact-finding mission than a mission of mercy,” Ben said.

“They’ll need plenty of mercy down there, kid,” said Han. Ben glared at him.

Han laughed and tapped Luke on his shoulder, “His ma makes that face.” Luke raised his eyebrows, tightened his lips and nodded.

“Yup,” said Luke.

Ben was done.

“You left her. You don’t get to talk about her.”

“Listen, kid, what’s between you and your mother doesn’t have—“

Ben raised his finger at Han. “Don’t call me that. I’m not your ‘kid.’”

“Ben,” said Luke. Ben closed his mouth and screwed it up with the effort of remaining silent.

—

They took the shuttle to the surface, to the outskirts of Syanees, the second largest city. Han decided it was best to stay in the ship, so Chewbacca and Luke came. They opened the door, and dusty air with a familiar, acrid, hard to place scent filled the cabin.

“Whew,” said Luke.

They looked at the horizon. The sky was full of brilliant sunset reds and pinks at mid-day. Once sinuous spires reaching toward that sky were now cracked, strange, melted claws. Ben looked at the ground, and saw what he thought at first was a pile of laundry, but then he saw a black and red leg-shaped husk of meat sticking out from under a skirt.

Ben recognized the smell. It was charred meat. A vast city full of charred, smoked meat. He reflexively gasped, then choked. Chewbacca grabbed him around the shoulder and stood between him and Luke, so Luke didn’t see his weakness, and therefore preserving the young warrior’s pride as he vomited.

“Oh, God, Chewie, you didn’t actually have to do that. That’s not what we do,” said Ben.

No problem, Chewie said.

—

They wandered through and found witnesses from surrounding towns, but no survivors from Syanees. The witnesses frantically asked them if they had seen this person, or that person, but they hadn’t seen a corpse yet with identifiable details, let alone seen someone alive. Ben did not get used to the sight of body after body. It was each uniquely horrible. They found a very wide foot bridge over a narrow river to rest by, and Ben climbed down into the ravine so he didn’t have to see the skyline. It was thick stone, with a long tunnel to let the river through, and walkways on either side through the underside of the bridge. Once, the walkways were probably lit. Now they were pitch black.

He panted and tried not to heave again into the river. He spat out the taste of his vomit again, but he was unable to decide if it was worse or better than the smell. Probably better. He turned his head to stare down the dark tunnel. Luke was on the other side, and Chewie up top, with his weapon, ready in case something happened.

Something moved. He screwed his eyes up. He couldn’t see it. But the Force rippled, like a lens, around it.

“Master,” he said, as calmly as he could.

“Yes?”

“Could you walk towards me, through the tunnel?”

Luke’s brow furrowed.

“Just… see if… you see anything.”

Luke’s footsteps echoed down the tunnel, loudly. They both heard a quiet gasp, and the echo of small steps. Ben reached out and tackled something he knew was there, but could not see, and it snapped into view just as he caught it.

Ben looked down.

“MASTER, it’s a child!” he screamed. Luke started running and emerged from the tunnel like a laser from the barrel of a blaster. The girl had fainted in Ben’s arms.

“Is she hurt?”

“I don’t know!”

Luke inspected her limbs before he laid his hand on her and used his healing power, in case there was an injury they couldn’t quickly see. Her hair was in three ragged top-knots. She was filthy and thin, but otherwise fine. Chewie jumped off of the side of the bridge and backwards over to them. He shouldered his weapon and held his arms out.

“I got her, I got her.” said Ben, testily. “She was using the Force to hide.”

“Really!?”

“Yes. How?”

“If—” Luke thought, “if she’s Force sensitive and wanted to enough, she, she might have done it as a reflex.”

Ben looked up at the sky, the bodies he’d seen playing in his mind over and over. This woman, that man, that pet, that old man, that unidentifiable thing, but….

“Where are the other children?” he said.

“…Oh. No.” said Luke. “That’s it. That’s what they took.”

The child’s eyes fluttered open, and she froze in terror. She opened her mouth to scream.

“It’s OK. It’s OK. We’re not them. We’re here to help. I’m Ben. That’s Luke. We’re Jedi.” People still told children about the Jedi, when trying to tell them who would drive away monsters. He hoped it would be a comfort to her.

The child blinked, and her face changed to tense and alert. She looked around, confused.

“Ben?”

“Yes, Ben.”

“It’s me.”

Ben blinked, and he felt that pair of eyes behind his come forward. He was suddenly trapped. He felt his eyes move down, saw through them, but had no control.

“We’ve gotten lost,” Ben heard himself say, “I need to pull us forward.”

“Ben?” said Luke. Luke stood, backed away, and slowly placed his hand over the hilt of his lightsaber.

“Don’t call me by that name, old man,” he snarled. “You never should have brought me here. I was a child. How dare you, you sanctimonious asshole.”

“Ben. Master,” the child in his arms said, and he looked down at her as Luke flicked on his Lightsaber.

“I see your Dark nature, whatever you are,” said Luke. “You will release my Padawan and the child.”

Ben’s body felt at his side, but there was no saber. He had not constructed one yet.

“I’ll see you soon enough,” said Kylo Ren. He held the child to him, hard. Luke saw them both convulse, and then slump, as the mass of Dark energy faded. Ben jerked awake and fell back on his hands, dropping the child across his lap as he scrambled backwards. She started screaming.

“W-wha-what, what, what—“ Ben said. Dark drops of blood fell from his nose and stained his robes.

—

They fell through the void. They’d both seen it all, the same events through one another’s eyes. Kylo reached out his hand to hers, but she fell away again.

—

Rey woke up in her Youngling cabin. She believed she was eight, but was not certain.


	6. Part 6

Rey woke up in her Youngling cabin. She believed she was eight, but was not certain. She quickly got dressed, grabbed the buckets outside of the door, and ran to fetch water, the grass whipping against her little legs as she ran.

It was before sunrise, but the moon and rings of Kos bathed the planet in permanent twilight. One or the other was always lit, except on the equinox, when the rings divided the sky in half like a knife. Once per month, usually in the early morning, the moon would break through the rings, and throw ten thousand shooting stars across the sky for days.

Rey looked up to see if this was one of those mornings— and it was not. She walked back to her cabin, put down the buckets she’d carried from the lake, sighed, and went back inside. 

She shared the little hut with Leto, who was a little bigger than her. They squabbled over who was older, but they were not from the same planet and time keeping between star systems was math a little too complicated for either of them. Rey insisted she was older, so she must be eight and Leto seven, but Leto insisted they could both be the same age even if one were older than the other. Rey knew this was absurd, and took Leto’s reasoning as an additional sign Rey was the eldest. They both knew Rey had arrived four days before Leto did, and Rey lorded it over Leto like a hard-won prize.

“Leto.” Rey shook Leto, who snapped awake. Leto looked over at the window and groaned. “It’s late!”

“I already got water. You just carry the wood I cut.”

Leto scowled. “You waited to get me up because you don’t like carrying wood.“

“Get yourself up tomorrow, then.”

“Oh, fine.”

Leto groggily sat up. Rey climbed into bed behind her and started undoing her braids and fingers through to shake loose any fallen strands and pull out tangles, then deftly re-braided. When she was done, both girls turned wordlessly so Leto could do the same for Rey. Rey kept her hair in three knots, as was her planet’s custom for unmarried girls before her world had—

Just, before.

There was a pot of mash on the remains of the fire from the night before, still good. They ate the last of it and packed themselves a snack of fruit and the green fiddle-heads of an ancient plant. They’d be on the lookout for more snacks while they cut wood. The fiddle-heads were sweet when young, but poison by the time they matured to a shiny red. They were a rare treat.

They grabbed the hand axes by the door. They were each quite proud of them. After a year and a half of careful supervision, stubbed fingers, and near misses, they’d earned them as their very own. Leto was not quick to pick up a skill but was extremely studious, and had mastered the axe before Rey. She’d been more gracious than Rey would have been, and put up no fuss when Master Luke took her aside and suggested she wait a few weeks so that Rey and she could have them on the same day. Rey carved her name in her handle. Leto preferred to leave hers unmarred.

They ventured up the hill of their little island. It was only an island at high tide. By mid-day, a land bridge would be revealed, and they would walk across to the main temple and the afternoon Youngling classes.

Master Luke was the only Jedi, the last left in the entire galaxy. There were six Padawans and four Younglings. Younglings went to classes in the afternoon. Padawans sometimes attended if the class was interesting or they lacked skill in an area, but mostly they kept to themselves and studied according to their interests. Sometimes they would go on trips with Master Luke.

“I heard,” said Rey “there are two new younglings coming.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“Master Jawless was talking to that Twi’lek.”

“His name’s Sed Re’lah, and you know what he’s called!” hissed Leto. She did not, however, correct Rey about Jawless.

Jawless was not a Jedi Master, but was much respected. He was the archivist at the library, and he worked closely with Kontra, training her on how to find, preserve, and de-encrypt old documents. He was force-sensitive and very old. 

He declined to give a name, as names were too sacred to entrust to children on his planet, so the Younglings had made one up for him years ago. Luke frowned upon it, but Jawless had gotten his injury by being a nuisance to a Sith Lord— and had lived. He had a scar running down his face and a great pock by his mouth where part of his jaw was missing. He said if that was who the Younglings thought he was, they did him a great honor.

Luke deferred, but reminded the children frequently of their roles as future diplomats.

Jawless spent a lot of time off world collecting and bringing back old Jedi lore, and enjoyed giving lectures, cleaning, and unseemly gossip. He was small, perhaps half a head taller than Rey, and a little shorter than Leto.

Leto gave Rey a boost into one of the trees. Rey climbed further off and hacked off little branches which would be dried over the course of a week for their kindling.

“Sed Re’lah doesn’t talk to me much, though!”

“If you won’t remember his name, then he won’t talk to you.”

“He doesn’t know that.”

Leto rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to tell people you aren’t the kind of person who remembers their name. Even people who don’t know anything about the Force can just look at you for a minute and know that. A Jedi could especially know that about you.” 

Rey seethed at Leto’s incisive judgment. Leto thought for a moment and she badly hid a mischievous twist in her mouth. "Besides, you know that ugly one’s name. You liiiike him.”

“I’ve never even talked to him. And— and Jedi don’t notice what someone looks like,” Rey said, haughtily. She looked down at Leto and realized that was just a little too harsh. In their worst fights, when they had just arrived, Rey told Leto she’d never be a great Jedi. The subject stung. Leto rubbed her face with the back of her hand. Rey lay across the branch and hissed down, “And I think he’s very handsome.”

Leto’s half sob choked out into a laugh. She grinned up at Rey, ready to tease her about her crush. Rey stared at him in fencing class, and intentionally messed up so he would correct her form.

“I think Jedi do notice what people look like.”

Both girls startled. They looked around and just on the side of the hill was a tall young man in a dusky robe. Neither wondered how they missed him; he was the eldest Padawan, and he would know how to make himself unseen. Leto’s smile turned to mad-eyed horror as she recalled her conversation, and her tears began to well up once more. If anything, Rey was more distressed that the topic of their conversation had overheard. If she’d been on the ground, she would have run.

By the look on his face, the young man had not anticipated this reaction.

“They do notice.” he continued, “What we look like says a lot about us. It’s never a good idea to ignore your perceptions. Something might sneak up on you.” He lazily ambled toward their tree. His body language was equal parts skilled fencer and body-self-conscious teenager, with strong upright posture though his lower back and abdomen, but pulled in arms and shoulders, as if trying in vain to make himself smaller than his very large frame. He commanded attention he had no wish to receive.

Leto stood at attention, as she’d learned to do between fencing forms. Rey hoped she would just melt into the branch she was laid across. He leaned in and said, in a conspiratorial stage whisper.

“My father is a bird, you know. A falcon.” He looked at them to see how they took it. Their brows knit. Neither had been to a planet with birds. He looked especially intently at Rey’s face for any sign she remembered.

“A bird?” he said. “This big” he held out his hands as wide as he could. “Feathery? Flies in the air and between star systems. Has a beak, like this.” He made a hooked motion over his face, bringing attention to the proportion of his nose and mouth. Both girls winced, and his face subtly echoed theirs.

“What do birds do?” said Leto.

“The one I know scavenges. They find valuable things and sell them. Maybe take stuff that’s not theirs when nobody’s looking. For food, they find little children in the woods, when they are out cutting wood.”

The girls gasped.

“Are birds people? Or just animals?” Asked Leto, enthralled.

“I’m told they’re sentient, but I can’t be sure. For fun they drink too much and pick lice off of Wookies, so they can’t be that smart.”

“You’re a person,” said Rey. “You look just like a human. You won’t eat us.”

“My mom was a princess. Princesses outrank birds, so they decided I’d look like this. Don’t tell anyone, I take after my dad. Especially my diet.”

“You’re making this up!” Rey shouted.

He clutched his heart in mock betrayal. “Me?”

She nodded fervently.

“You are very perceptive.”

“I think it’s true,” said Leto.

He inclined his head toward her, “Maybe so.”

Rey stowed her axe in its sheath and put it on her belt. She swung her legs down and hung from the branch by her fingers.

“I can do pull-ups.” she said. She demonstrated.

“I see that. Master Luke tells me you both work very hard at your martial arts.”

Leto glanced past the young man’s shoulder, down the rocky hill toward the water. The tide had begun to leave, and the peaks of their rocky walking path peeked out of the water.

“If we don’t hurry up, we won’t finish our chores in time for class,” said Leto.

“Oh, you’re going to class?”

“We always go to class!” said Rey, still hanging.

“We’re the oldest Younglings. We have to set an example,” said Leto.

“I see. But Padawans don’t have to go to class this time of day.”

“We’re Younglings, not Padawans,” said Rey. Leto froze in place and held her breath.

“Really? That’s not what Master Luke told me. HE told me you two were going to be training with me from now on.”

Rey let go of the branch, and stumbled back against the tree in shock. Leto looked down at the lumber she’d been gathering, then back at the young man.

“Really?” she said.

“Really. As Padawan learners”

“I-I need to put up the kindling to dry before I’m a Padawan!” said Leto.

“You’ll still have to do your chores when you’re a Padawan.”

“I promised, though! Rey got my water for me.”

“Well, finish that chore, if it’s important to you. Then we’ll go.”

Leto gathered up her kindling and ran down the hill as fast as she could. The young man watched her for a moment, then looked back at Rey. She’d sat down by the tree with her knees drawn up.

“I thought you’d both be more pleased.”

“She is. She just doesn’t want you to see it too much. Jedi don’t cloud their judgement with emotion.”

He nodded. “And you…?”

She pursed her lips.

“If something is troubling you, you can ask me. I’m not really going to be your Master yet. I’m a Padawan myself. But Luke is trusting me with your training, so when you’re ready to talk, we can talk.”

She thought and said, quietly “Master Jawless says Jedi only take on one Padawan, and that Jedi train them. You’re a Padawan.”

He nodded. “That’s how it was done, yes.”

“It’s not now?”

“Well, before the fall of the Old Republic, Jedi also trained in a big temple, and they didn’t live in the wilderness. But when they passed, a lot of their ways passed. Master Luke was trained as we’re being trained, in the wilderness. We’re a different Order, with different traditions. Some of which are brand new.”

She nodded.

“There are a lot fewer of us, too, and only one Master and many students who need him. Master Luke is very wise, but he can’t be everywhere. But, I’ll be a Jedi soon. I think this year.”

She looked up at him “Really!?”

He nodded. “Part of being a Jedi is being a mentor, and so I’ll be learning how to do that with you. Go easy on me.”

Rey felt something well up in her, and she blurted out before she knew what she was saying, “I— I’m too little to do this.”

He was taken aback. “Because you’re younger than Padawans were in the old days?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“I see. Would you like to go to class this morning, and I’ll speak to Master Luke?”

She fought back tears and nodded. He looked back over the water to the now fully emerged land bridge.

“I may have kept you late. How about… I came by boat. Would you like to ride back with Leto and I?”

“Do I have to paddle?”

He rolled his eyes. “I’ll paddle.”

“YES.”

“Let’s get her.”

He strode down the hill, and she ran to keep up.

“By the way, I’m not sure we’ve really formally been introduced. Have we?” He said.

“Yuh huh.”

“Really? I don’t recall.”

“You’re Ben. We met on my planet.”

“That’s right. I must have forgotten we were introduced.…”

“Rey.”

“Rey! I’m not very good with names, so we’ll help each other.”

“I’m not either. I’ll help you remember.”

“Thank you.”

—

Despite their best efforts, Rey was too late to join class. She was told to wait in the hall of the academy for Ben. The main academy was a low-built structure of wood and stone, a little more sophisticated than the rough cabins the Younglings and Padawans lived in. Older Padawans helped the youngest Younglings build and repair their own tiny cabins and slowly learn to independently go about their day. If they ever felt too frustrated or distressed, a Padawan or sometimes Luke himself was always close by and listening through the Force. Rey and Leto had needed little assistance with their morning and evening routine for at least half a year.

Leto ran out to the training yard to practice her forms with a wooden baton. Rey peered at her through the window. The elder Padawans, who pursued their studies with less supervision, stopped by and said a few words for her. They did not congratulate her, they merely greeted her as if she belonged. Leto shook with excitement, trying to contain herself as was appropriate for a Padawan in training.

She was half as tall as the training dummies.

Rey turned back toward Luke’s study. She was bored, and began to meditate to make the time go faster. She had learned a few tricks, some by surreptitiously watching others. Luke had caught on and told the older Padawans not to show off in front of her, because she would attempt to copy them before she’d been trained. She could, in a very rudimentary way, push outward and make herself aware of her surroundings. She relaxed and breathed, and followed the exercise. She pushed her consciousness down, from the base of her spine and found the ground, then out, toward the office. She stopped just inside the door. A muffled, hazy vision of two figures, one seated and one standing, swam into view.

“— natural that she would fear change.” this figure was taking a kettle off the stove, which clanked as he gripped it. This was Master Luke.

“I agree. But it is an insight that is mature beyond her years, and what I’ve seen of her. Perhaps the Force spoke through her feelings. She is strong in it, and it would be unwise to discount her feelings without consideration.”

Luke spooned leaves into one cup. The spoon hovered over the second one as he looked up at Ben. Ben waived him off, refusing. Luke put up the second cup and poured the hot water into his own.

“Perhaps. Perhaps her feelings mirror yours, and you believe I have not considered them.”

“Tradition exists for a reason, Master. They are young. And there are two of them. More than that, I have not yet finished my training. There may be too many risks to manage.”

“Two apprentices was once common. I myself have you six. In any case, Leto is ready, and by my estimation may be the Padawan easiest to teach that we’ve had in this Order. Mind you, there have only been six. She has few showy skills yet, but she’s temperate. As her skills grow, she’ll have a strong foundation to guide her to the Light.”

“And Rey?”

“Prideful. Stubborn. More powerful than she has a character for yet. They’ve benefitted from one another. I think you will learn a lot from having these students. You and Rey have some in common, especially.”

Ben’s eyebrows shot up. “I may have struggled with an… intemperate demeanor, but I hardly have a similar background. Was I so… stormy when I first came as she when we found her?”

Ben recalled the months after their first meeting. Rey barely talked, and when she did it was to defy or argue. Ben had had night terrors, and he’d heard she had as well. Ben had avoided her, afraid that speaking to her would bring them back for either of them. He’d blacked out at one point, on that planet, and woke somehow more terrified than he’d been seeing trenches of charred bodies. They’d, at least, had an unreality to them. The shadow of himself he felt that day, and now, barely, sometimes, was frighteningly real.

Luke nodded. “Very similar. Like her, you matured.” Luke stirred his tea. “Ben, while we’re on the topic, I want to apologize for taking you with me to Phthalo.”

Rey, listening, flinched.

Ben sighed. He said, with some tension in his voice, “Mercy missions are important to our cause. I’m glad for the experience. If I hadn’t gone, we may not have found her.”

“It was still not a place for young people.”

“It was not a place for anyone. She remembers being found there, you know.”

“Does she? Has she said anything else?”

Ben shook his head. “No. I hope she doesn’t remember, but I believe she does. If anything, she remembers less about after her rescue than the massacre, I think. She did not remember Han, or Chewie. Some burdens are too much for young children.”

“Or young men?”

Ben inclined his head toward his mentor. “As you say. This is a heavy responsibility.”

“This is as much for your benefit as theirs. That’s not a platitude. Rey has learned some temperance from Leto. Leto has kept up her study of martial arts and the Force to compete with Rey. And you, I hope, will benefit from the… immense opportunity of a stubborn student. As you once were.”

“I am uncomfortable with defining my potential and destiny by how I behaved when I was a child.”

“As am I. All of you— with each of your gifts— I am confident you will be able to finish what I started when I am gone. Every one of you is capable.”

Ben raised his eyebrows again.

“You’re too young to talk like you’re giving your own eulogy.”

“I’m too old to pretend I’ll never have a eulogy. Ben, I’ll be frank with you. You’ll be a Jedi Knight soon, and I can bring you in on this. I feel something coming, something… terrible. I don’t suppose you feel it yet?”

“No, Master. I don’t feel the future.”

“The present is enough.”

The Abduction of Phthalo became simply referred to as The Abduction as three other planets, none central to the Galaxy, with no military import and therefore little military guard, faced the same treatment. The Senate argued endlessly, and Leia, his mother, had walked out of it a year ago and started assembling a force capable of quickly deploying and finding some answers.

There were rumors of a military junta based on a cult of the Dark Side gathering strength. But space is vast, and many maps had been lost when the Old Republic fell, and again the Empire. The data storage was physically destroyed, or their data encryption sabotaged by the deposed and bitter remnants of the losing side.

Luke continued. “I feel it won’t be me who defeats it. It’ll be your generation, you Padawans and the Younglings. And I… cannot allow you to wait. You all must be ready before your time. Even if it’s not the best thing for each of you, it’s the best for all of us. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Rey will be allowed to attend classes as she pleases— as all Padawans here are. But we will be pushing her out of the nest to fly.”

Ben’s mouth twitched as he ground his back teeth. Luke sipped his tea.

Rey pulled herself slowly back to her body. As she did, both men turned their heads, not toward her consciousness but in the direction she was sitting, through the wall. She startled and snapped all the way back to the hall, and her eyes flew open.

Ben and Master Luke emerged a few minutes later. If either had noticed her intrusion, they did not let on. From their example, she learned to conceal her feelings.

Master Skywalker didn’t sound like he liked her. Ben had lied to her. He did remember when they met.

She no longer trusted either of them, and withdrew.

—

Ben and Jawless had taken countless walks when he first arrived. Jawless was the kind of soul troubled souls easily confided in, and his instruction had greatly helped Ben with his ability to control his anger and channel it into productive things. Ben hadn’t raised his voice in three years, which was miraculous considering it had once been so bad they were considering ending his training and shipping him off to far off relatives at one point.

It was not so much her temper which worried Ben. It was her defiance. Even small requests that benefitted only her and inconvenienced him would be ignored or argued over.

Ben asked Jawless to go on a walk with Rey by the lake. She complied, but minimally. She walked, but would not say anything.

“I think there are fiddleheads yonder” he said, pointing up a path. There was indeed a shallow pond there, where they sometimes grew.

“The salt flies spawn there,” she said, repeating what she’d heard. She figured it meant it was where they were most plentiful.

“I will take care of them,” he said. He walked up the short path, and she followed.

One or two, and then a dozen bumbling little flies landed on her. She waved them off, but there were too many to completely fend them off. Master Jawless ignored them, and they were at the pond. There were six little fiddleheads and two hundred flies.

“Owwww,” she said.

“Should I stop them?”

She nodded, figuring he’d fan her while she grabbed the plants.

Instead he allowed one to land on his finger and poke at it. Jawless squinted at it, and it dropped.

She frowned. He waved again, and another five dropped.

“Do it again” she said. He did, and more fell to the ground, dead.

“How did you do that?”

“You don’t know?”

She hadn’t felt anything. When Force users did a trick, it was usually obvious to her.

“Practice. And too old to waste more energy than I have to,” he said. She nodded. It made sense. “And I doubt Luke would like this trick, so I’m hiding it. So it’ll be our secret, yes?” He flicked his wrist back and forth. Flies dropped by the dozens.

“I don’t think he likes getting bitten, either.”

“He values all life,” Jawless said.

She nodded. He didn’t mind if they swatted flies, but she remembered being told to be very deliberate with life and death.

“You know what I think?” he said. She shook her head. “What’s a fly for, if we don’t swat him? Doesn’t it feel better to take out your frustration, without having to worry about the lives of flies that bite you anyway?”

He reached out in her hand and helped her make a pointed finger. A last fly was buzzing around, and Master Jawless caught it and placed it on her hand. It stung her fingertip.

“Ssh-aaa.”

“You don’t have to take that. Give it right back to him.”

She did. The fly fell to the ground. She smiled at him.

“Now help me get these fiddleheads.” He gathered the six they spotted, and then pretended he didn’t see any more while pointing additional ones out to her with his foot.

She and Master Jawless began going on walks regularly. For a short time, to everyone else, she seemed to improve.

—

Rey and Leto were going to learn a Force push that day. Or Leto was. Rey had seen it once before, but did not tell him. Ben showed it to them in the forest near their house, and Leto studiously attempted over and over again after he’d left to his own, more advanced training.

“You’re trying too hard,” said Rey.

“You do it,” said Leto, testily.

Rey saw a stick on the ground and pulled it into her hand. Leto was thrilled, then crestfallen.

“You’ll get it. I can show you again.”

“No,” said Leto.

“Why not, it’s just—“

“I need to do it myself. If it’s easy for you, go find Ben and do something harder. Leave me alone, OK?”

Rey burst into tears and ran off. She listened for Ben’s presence and headed toward it. It was in his quarters, near the main Island. She knocked and opened the door. He and a lady looked over at her. They were seated on the floor in front of a low table.

The lady was older, with hair braided on top of her head. She wore a military style waistcoat and tall boots. She had a dozen little lines around her mouth, and a deep crease between her eyebrows.

“Who is this?” she said, and stood. Ben stood.

“Mother, this is my Padawan, Rey. Rey, this is my mother, General Leia Organa.”

“I thought she was a princess?”

“I gave myself a promotion,” she said. She put her hand in her pocket, then held her hand out to shake. Rey took it, and found she’d been palmed a handkerchief. Leia winked. Rey turned and wiped the tears and snot from her face, then turned her face upward for Leia’s inspection. She got a thumbs up.

“Rey, my mother will be giving a lecture on government in the hall later. Would you please give us a moment?”

“I already did the lesson.”

“Could you entertain yourself for a little while?”

She sighed and nodded. Once outside, she clambered up the nearest tree, and listened in.

“Well, she is charming,” said Leia.

“She was good for you. She’s been an absolute nightmare.” Leia cackled at the irony, and he made a face at her.

“I bet she’s worth it. I speak from experience.”

“It’s not really a compliment to hear how hard it was to like me, Mother.”

“Well, we come from a large family of people who are difficult to like. I never got anything from being liked. Your dad didn’t,” she smirked and said under her breath, “your grandpa sure as hell didn’t.”

Ben rolled his eyes at the mention of his dad.

“I’m sorry he didn’t visit, son. He never got any of this. He does know you’re working hard.”

“I didn’t want him here anyway. I don’t know why you carry his water after he left.”

“He’s a heard-headed old luggabeast, and we have a lot in common. Anyway, I wanted you to know, I know these past few months— hell, years— has been rough. Really. I wanted you to know, if there was something you wanted to tell me, you can do it.”

“I’m not keeping secrets, mother.”

“I know. I trust you. I just want you to know, if you ever get into any trouble, no matter how big, I’ll come get you. There’s nothing that could make me stop loving you.”

He nodded, and fought back tears.

“I am having a problem. I just need to think about it a little. I’ll… before you go, we’ll talk.”

“Okay, son. We’ll figure this out.” She frowned. “Not to, uh, ruin the moment but… I have the strangest feeling.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve got this,” she waved her hand around the backside of her head “crackling? Noise? It’s really odd.”

Ben frowned and turned inward for a moment. He inhaled, sharply, and looked up, straight at Rey. Rey scrambled back to her body, but not before he was out the door and looking straight at her in the tree.

“REY. Get down now.”

She jumped down and wouldn’t look at him.

“You go to the training yard and sit until the end of lecture. Then we’re talking to Master Luke. Do you understand me?” She nodded, then ran from him.

She cut a wandering path through the forest, eventually making her way to the training yard. The new Younglings had already started class with Ben’s mom, and Ben had not accompanied her. Ben had a mother, and she did not. The Younglings had someone else’s mother lecturing them, which was better than none. Everyone was where they belonged, and she did too— in trouble.

Rey plopped herself in the courtyard and looked around. Aside from the soft murmur of the lecture in the hall, everything was tediously quiet. She decided to practice the lesson Ben had given her: lifting pebbles and trowing them. She had learned to multiply by twos, and decided to combine the lesson. Two, four, eight, sixteen….

She lifted the number of pebbles associated with the number she had calculated in the sequence and hurled them against the side of the assembly. Each took a little more concentration. In half an hour, she had gotten up to 512. They crashed against the side of the hall, and one of them broke a hole. Kontra, who was the assigned assistant to Leia for her lecture that day, leaned out of the hall with a worried look on her face. Kontra saw Rey sitting in the center of the hovering stones, then stared out into the forest. Rey felt a disturbance in the Force from Kontra’s direction, but was gathering stones for her next melee. It had gotten easier. These stones would be larger. She needed a challenge to distract her.

Ben sprinted into the courtyard and froze, staring as hundreds of stones lifted up to Rey’s eye level. She was seated on the dirt, legs out in front of her, leaning back on her hands.

“What are you doing, Rey?”

“One thousand and twenty-four,” she said, and hurled them. He held his hand up and they froze, in mid-air. A few little pebbles jittered back and forth in the air.

“Ben, STOP!” she whined. She stamped her palm into the ground. Ben could not reply. He ground his teeth and turned red from the concentration. He’d burst a small vessel in his eye. The Padawan who had summoned him made eye contact with him, and had gone pale. Kontra slowly raised her hand and started pushing back, as Ben eased up so he could move. He crawled on his elbows to Rey.

“You will stop this right now, Rey.”

“I can do what I want.”

“NOW, REY.”

“NO.”

He bore his teeth at her “YOU LISTEN TO ME,” he screamed, “YOU ARE GOING TO SERIOUSLY HURT SOMEONE.”

“I don’t CARE.” Tears streamed down her face. He looked suddenly guilt-stricken.

“I’m sorry, I lost my temper, I—“

“I DON’T CARE.”

He reached up his hand toward her face and said “I’m sorry.” She instantly felt as if she were very far away, in a dream. As the stones fell, so did Kontra. Her nose was bleeding.

“WE NEED HEALERS IN THE COURTYARD NOW” yelled Ben, as Rey passed out.

—

She work up Master Luke’s quarters, in a cushion on the corner where he sometimes meditated. He and Ben were arguing. Leia was still in the training area, preserving a facade of normalcy for the youngest there.

“Her weaknesses are also MY weaknesses.” said Ben, “I cannot teach her what she needs. Without the maturity and self-control to direct her powers, she is like an engine with weak walls. She could destroy herself. She could be influenced.”

“This is exactly the challenge you need to face within yourself. I want you to find—”

“I am only NINETEEN, uncle. NINETEEN. When you talk about feeling the Dark Side, I’m not sure I’ve even encountered it before! I wouldn’t recognize it!”

“You have gained mastery of all the skills I would expect of a Jedi. This is your final test. I know you are afraid of failing it, but I have faith in you. You are capable of self-contr—“

Ben pulled the teapot to him with the Force and threw it on the ground at his feet. “Just listen to me! We need you!”

Jawless opened the door and looked around the room, spotting Rey, who had begun to sob.

“You two are done talking right now. Ben, we’re taking a walk.”

“I am not fini—“

“You are,” he said. Ben clenched his fists. Jawless turned his attention over to Luke, coldly. He was 600 years Luke’s senior, and spoke to him the way some people speak to naughty children. “As the girl’s Master, I’m sure you can spare half an hour to watch her yourself while young Ben and I take a walk.”

Ben followed Jawless out into the hall. Luke walked over to his teapot and lifted one of the shards. Rey stood up from her corner and walked over next to him.

“I’m sorry you were here for that.”

Rey shrugged.

“Would you mind, young lady, if I meditate with you? Share your thoughts?”

“You can just take them. Why wouldn’t you? You can.”

“It is important to me to have your permission.”

She lifted one shoulder and the corner of her mouth. “I don’t care.”

Luke kneeled in front of her and took her small hands in his, and gazed into her eyes. His use of the Force was masterfully precise; his presence was so subtle as to be barely perceptible.

He frowned deeply and his gaze slowly dropped to the floor.

“Who… taught you to think this way?”

“I teach myself. I just watch people. Ben teaches me, some things.”

“Ben?”

She nodded.

They heard rapid footsteps down the hall, and a small voice squealing with glee.

“REY! REY. I DID IT.”

Luke and Rey looked toward the door.

“REY, I moved a rock! It’s just a pebble, but I did it! You were right, I was getting in the way!”

“Leto, would you excuse us for just a minute?” Leto looked at how they were arranged, Luke on his knees and Rey standing with a passive face and perceptibly defiant arch in her back.

“I-is she in trouble?”

Rey’s cheeks burned with embarrassment and she looked at the floor, covered in little shards.

“You… J-JUST SHUT UP, LETO.”

The shards flew across the room, and Leto screamed.

—

Ben carried her with him over his shoulder, like a doll, in a perpetual twilight torpor. The Order built a pyre for Leto, and Rey was too far gone to cry, and after, it was time for Ben and Luke to argue again. Older Rey felt herself surface every time Ben touched her, but couldn’t make contact with Kylo Ren as she herself was too sedated by Ben’s mind-trick to complete the effort.

Ben argued more with Master Luke.

“You think I accidentally seduced an eight year old to the Dark Side? Me?” said Ben.

“That is not what I said. I merely asked if you had shown her anything, or seen anything at all like this in her. It is one thing to have trouble handling a Padawan, but this was unprecedented.”

“That is NOT what I sense from you. Don’t lie to me about your suspicion. I’m not even a Jedi Knight, how am I supposed to be a Sith? A Sith infiltrator? You would sense the Dark in me if I were!”

“I do, Ben. I always have.”

Ben was taken aback. “I’ve done nothing to deserve this.”

“It’s always been there, Ben. It always will be. It’s in your blood.”

“You’re a Jedi, uncle. Your father before you was a Jedi. Dad’s a jerk, not a Sith.”

“My father… my father was also a Sith, Ben.”

Ben froze in place. He forgot to breathe.

“He was Darth Vader. He died Anakin Skywalker.”

“Didn’t you kill Darth Vader?”

“No.”

“He just happened to die after you battled him?”

“Ben, I—“

“Just, stop, uncle. All of you lied to me. I’d expect that of dad, but you and mom? You, just….“

“Ben.”

“I will speak to you when this matter is settled,” Ben said. He had made his decision.

“That is probably wise.”

—

It was finally decided she would go to live with relatives of Ben’s mother. Ben insisted on taking her himself, because she was his responsibility and he would not abandon her. Luke was worried enough about Ben’s state that he asked Jawless to go with him, and for the Padawan Kontra, who had mostly recovered, to accompany them both in case there was another incident. They did not have a hyperdrive on the shuttle, but would instead go to the nearest planet with a ship that could carry their shuttle with them. The trip would take two weeks.

Luke himself would fly to the wreckage of the old Jedi temples destroyed by his father in the great purge, in search of any fragment on how a child could turn to the Dark Side and use its techniques, seemingly without training. They hoped a systematic weakness had been identified in the past, and a remedy had been found. They hoped to restore Rey to the Light, or at least to her sanity. In the meantime, Luke did the best he knew how.

Every morning on the ship bound for Jakku, Ben asked her to join him in a new exercise. They sat, facing one another. He said the same thing every morning, and she felt him reach out with the Force to her.

“Do you remember yesterday very well, Rey?”

She answered, but it didn’t matter.

“I don’t remember being your age.”

She’d reply, but the reply didn’t matter.

“Lots of people forget being your age and younger. It’s very common,” he said.

“Lots of people forget,” he said.

“Of people forget,” he said.

“People forget,” he said.

“Forget,” he said.

—

Ben and his newly-pledged Master, the archivist Snoke, known to the children as Jawless, discussed what to do with Rey. They agreed they’d leave her on Jakku.

She was a backup. If Ben ever failed, Snoke would come for her.

Ben resolved never to fail. They would never be coming back.

—

Few images made it past that programming. She saw Kontra bleeding from her nose in the courtyard, or was it the floor of the air lock? Kontra flew home, said Ben. She didn’t want to go either. She screamed and pounded against the door and begged to be let back in, but like Rey when she was moved from Youngling to Padawan, she was pushed out to fly by herself, into the cold of space.

The closest planet with a hyperdrive was Jakku. Instead of boarding the vessel to Coruscant, their original destination, they were going to double back to Kos. They were going to bring friends with them, too. Six men in white masks and armor. She no longer had any idea who the little man with the scars on his face was, but Ben called him Supreme Commander, so he had to be important.

“I’ll come back for you, just wait here, no matter what,” said Ben. “You don’t have to stay with strangers for long. We’ll do this together. I have to talk to my Uncle first.”

She didn’t know what he was talking about, but she didn’t want him to leave. She threw her arms around his neck. They both tensed, suddenly, making contact for the first time since they’d jumped into that portion of their timeline. Ben’s nose began to bleed.

“We’re being watched,” Ben heard himself say. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

“I’ve been stuck here for… I think a year and a half?” said Rey.

“Six months, for me,” he said.

She nodded. “Can we go now? Please?”

He looked over his shoulder at Snoke, who was watching from the hatch. They were headed back to the Jedi Order. He began to breathe heavily, almost hyperventilating.

“I… I can change things! If you let me go, I can change this. It didn’t have to happen like this. I don’t have to live like this.”

Her eyes darted in fear. “Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me, Master. Not again. You promised I wouldn’t be alone again.”

Rey began to sob. He looked back at her, his eyes wide. He blinked angry tears away.

“I did. Damn you.”

He pulled her tiny frame to to himself in a great, desperate hug. She braced herself, and they jumped forward through time.

They left that timeline, and nothing had been changed. It all happened again.

—

Rey was awake. It was not a nightmare. She was twenty, and her hands were clenched around her Master’s former lightsaber, now hers. She and he were nose to nose. His eyes were wide in shock. A moment before, she had struck out and he, instead of parrying, had simply let his saber— once Anakin’s, once Luke’s, now his— drop from his hands.

A deliberate surrender.

She switched her lightsaber off. He staggered a little, backward, and looked down as blood soaked his cloak and flowed downward from his belly in fits and starts, with his heartbeat. He fell backward, and she dove to break his fall.


	7. Part 7

He staggered a little, backward, and looked down as blood soaked his cloak and flowed downward from his belly in fits and starts, with his heartbeat. He fell backward, and she dove to break his fall. 

They slapped against the marble floor. It echoed. She propped him up into her lap and pressed firmly against his belly, vainly trying to stop the steady flow. His eyes fluttered as he went into shock. He mouthed something at her, but his breath only burbled. He would be able to speak again, she knew.

His face was smooth, without whiskers or scars, she noticed.

She looked around quickly. It was a stone room, with black marble stories tall. They were at the foot of a ziggurat of marble so black it seemed to obliterate any light which touched it. A tiny, wizened, scarred-faced figure of a thing looking on with leering anticipation sat atop the throne.

And on the steps were Poe, and Luke, and Finn. Poe had been nearly torn in half. Finn was glassy eyed, but his face was a strange, sunken mask. Luke, mercifully, looked as if he were merely sleeping. She felt quickly to see if she felt anything from him. She did not.

She looked back down at Kylo Ren, who was gasping with every breath. She tried to clear her mind, and find the peace that had healed him before— but it was gone. It was like a flint strike without any kindling. She’d fallen too far into the Dark to make Light. That final blow she’d struck to him had taken the last little bit of light from her.

“We have to go. We went too far forward, Ben. Let’s go.”

Let me go, she heard, in her mind.

“No.”

This is better. It’s fate. End it.

She looked down at his eyes, but instead of at her, he was gazing up at Snoke.

And then he wasn’t. The bleeding had slowed to a trickle, and the muscles in his face relaxed, and relaxed, until he looked like a figure carved in wax left in a too-hot room.

She let out a wail that started in her pelvis and poured out of her open throat like acid. She took her lightsaber in her hand, and his, and as she stood he slid off of her lap. She walked, slowly, wailing toward the ziggurat, barely human-shaped, her back arched and the sabers held down, like a spider with half its legs pulled off. She leaned on the tips and screamed and climbed, past Finn, past Poe, and past Luke, toward the throne she would claim once she tore the trash on it apart.

She would pour her blood onto every star and watch them all go out. She took one more step toward conquest—

— and suddenly, her leg was caught. She twisted her spine to look down the stair. Luke’s metal hand was wrapped around her foot. He was pale. He had used the last of his strength to hide his own life Force.

She howled incoherently and thrashed. He ignored the malevolent creature and spoke straight into her, to Rey.

“ _You need convince Leia first!_ Don’t come straight to me.”

“NO.”

“You have to go back.”

He pulled her suddenly, and his hand made contact with her other ankle. He pushed Rey out of that body, and she fell backwards, again, toward her own time.

But the Other Rey did not. She bashed Luke across the neck with her Lightsaber, continued her climb, and claimed her throne. Snoke’s last breath was a quiet laugh.

And nothing changed. It all happened again.

Patterns repeat themselves. Dark defeats light. Apprentices conquer their Masters. Women bury their lovers, and their friends, and their hope, then take the price of what they lost from every living thing. Families play a variation of the same mistakes. But some events are constant.

—

—

Kylo Ren fell for what felt like an eternity, backwards, out of his future corpse. The corner of his vision filled in first, and slowly, the world came back into focus. He found himself suddenly on the stone steps to the temple, watching Rey climb, a very short distance behind her.

He remembered this moment. From his point of view, this had been… a year ago, in time passed? Longer? He felt himself subsume into his former self, and he waited for the moment he could surface.

Rey’s head moved back and forth, as if hallucinating. She needed to look for Force Ghosts to see the way. He did not. He had climbed countless times before, and this would be the final time. He could almost see the summit, where his Supreme Leader had taught him the weakness of his attachments.

His attachments still made him weak.

He felt a strange, almost foreign energy behind his eyes he had not felt since he was a boy, which he thought Snoke had helped him banish. It was the one he’d feel before a night terror. While Rey was not looking, he wiped a few drops of blood from his nose. It hardly mattered. They were almost there.

He didn’t wonder if he could do it, like he had on the bridge. It would be physically easier to go through the motion. But she would die, or, more likely, the Force would intervene and he would die, Apprentice would slaughter Master, and the greater cycle of the Universe would continue in its clockwork dance, as it had countless times before. They were a part of something greater.

In any case, she was never going to be used against him ever again. Snoke couldn’t threaten him with her if one or the other of them were dead. At least he’d given Rey a fighting chance against himself and his Master, whatever happened. Training her had been the right thing to do.

Rey, in front of him, began to get fatigued, and stopped a few steps above him, breathing heavily. She looked at him, her eyes wide and jerking, and he thought for a moment she had to know what he had planned. She held out her hand to him, and it hung there. She flinched at something only she could see.

He reached out and took her hand, and Kylo Ren—

No. That was what Snoke had named him. Ben Solo took control.

“I’m here,” he said.

“What’s here?” her voice trembled.

She was not there. The other her— the Rey he’d travelled with— had not made it back. He remembered what he’d said.

“More of the answer you’re looking for. Don’t be afraid.”

“I can’t… I can’t feel my way back. I don’t know how to get back from here.”

“I know the way. Just keep going. We’re almost there.”

Her eyes darted back and forth as she tried to breathe more slowly. He hadn’t seen her face in years, he realized. While he was bleeding out, his vision had darkened, then whited out before he got a look at her face. He’d last seen her in a child’s body. But this Rey— his Rey, or soon to be his— was long limbed, higher cheeked, darker haired, and beautiful.

She took a step, and he held her back.

“Are we going?”

“Just… let me look at you for a moment.”

Even on the step above him, she was not quite as tall as he.

“We’ll be leaving soon,” he said. “You might not come with me. When the time comes.”

She nodded, as if she knew what he meant. He thought of what she’d see. The Abduction. The lead-up to the massacre, and her own murder of Leto. His death at her hands.

Based on that future, he had clearly neither killed her nor tried, at this point. He felt lighter as that burden fell off of him, and even moreso as he took up a new one: He resolved to make his way back to her inevitable, suitable rise, and the revenge she’d take from Snoke for both of them.

Or perhaps, toward something else. Maybe there could be more than one choice, for them.

He held her face in his hands, and leaned in to give her the gift of a way forward.

“I’m sorry,” he said, pressed his lips against the corner of her mouth, and thought of the map of the galaxy. She would have the missing piece. Her breath jerked and she wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders, pressing into a full on kiss. He moved his arm to her back, and they pressed themselves, chest to chest, together, and he gave himself over to the moment.

— and then she pulled away from him.

“I’m sorry,” she said. He shook his head.

“No, it’s—“

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I just….”

He saw what was about to happen, and felt a sudden ache in his chest that made him twitch. She began to shake. She started to pull away.

“Wait, Rey, it’s—“

She let go, and fell backwards. The moment she was no longer touching him, Ben lost his connection the outside world, and Kylo Ren became conscious again just in time to see Rey fall backwards to the ground, and her mind break break through it, as if she were tearing through a rice paper floor. She fell into a vast, bottomless void.

Without thinking, Kylo Ren jumped after her to catch her, leaving his body behind.

There was only Ben.

—

Rey landed in her body, then on her bottom, hard, and a moment later Kylo Ren’s body fell on top of her. He looked up at her, and she was pale. Her fingers flexed and twitched, and her breath shallow. He pulled her across his lap and patted her face.

“Shh, shh, you’re fine now. It’s fine now.” He thought better of it. “It’s not fine. I’m sorry. I didn’t plan this.”

She swallowed.

“I’m cold,” she said.

He removed his cloak and wrapped it around her, then lifted her and began walking down the stairs.

“I— I need to get the scrap.”

“As far as I’m concerned, you got off the planet. Training complete. We’re not staying here.”

“What happened up there?” They were at the land bridge.

“What happened here caused a great disturbance in the Force. I knew the place was thin, I had no idea even a minor trick could tear it. Up there, Snoke taught me…” he stopped, and started again, “I… was forced to kill them.” 

It was like breaking open a dam, and emotion welled up as if to drown him. He breathed in deeply, and his eyes darted back and forth. “I need to sit.”

“Is it safe here?”

He nodded. His lips were pale. He put her down and they each guided themselves heavily to the ground of the land bridge. He dipped one trembling hand in the water and wet his mouth, then ran his hand over his face. Sweat and water pasted little strands of hair to his forehead.

“We need to kill him,” he said. She knew exactly who he was talking about.

“NO,” she said, “We need to stay away.”

“Where are we going to hide from this? _Here?_ ” he gestured at the hill top. “They are going to find me. If they don’t find me, he’ll look for you. If he doesn’t find you, it’ll be someone else like us. This is going to happen over, and over, and _over_ again until the end of _fucking time!_ ”

“We don’t have to be a part of it!”

“WE ARE A PART OF IT," he bellowed, "We are part of everything. We know exactly what our place is. We don’t get to forget until we're _dea_ —”

“ _Ben!_ ” she said. He stopped. She stared at him as he caught his breath.

“We’re going back to camp. You’re going to eat. You’re going to go to sleep.”

“You’re—“

“I’m going to watch you, and you’re going to sleep.” She removed his belt along with his lightsaber and his axe, and put them on herself. She extended her hand to him, and he took it. She marched him back toward the camp. She used the rations he’d held back for an emergency to make a quick meal, then insisted he eat it.

“Get in your cot.”

He rocked absently and stared.

“Kylo. Master.”

He stared off into space.

“ _Soldier. Ben._ ”

His eyes snapped over to her.

“We spent the last few months years as Jedi, right?”

“In training.”

“Yeah, in training. Let’s just… let’s just try meditating. Like we used to. Sit on your cot, we’ll meditate.”

She talked him through a visualization, and eventually he went to sleep. She sat up the next two days with him before she felt comfortable taking her eyes off of him.

—

When he woke up, she was in the cot with him. Her back was pressed against his chest, and their breathing was very close to synchronized. He lifted his head. Her arm was under his. He hadn’t remembered falling asleep like that. She was still wearing his black cloak over her now dark beige clothing. He was in his undergarment, having waded in to rinse the sweat off of him the night before.

She started awake when he moved.

“Nn?”

“Uh,” he said.

She turned and looked at him.

“Sorry. I couldn’t stay awake. You were pretty far gone. I figured if you moved, I’d wake up.”

He nodded lightly. “Inventive. Very good.”

She smiled a little at him. “You can still talk? Still going to order me around?”

“I’m working up to it.”

“That’s good. Thought I might have lost you.”

“Well.”

She put her head down on his arm. He looked down at her and tilted his head. He put his other hand on her cheek and she turned toward it. He rubbed his thumb on her bottom lip, lightly.

“I thought you didn’t want to do this while we were on the planet,” she said.

“I think we left the planet and came back. Didn’t I say that?”

She nodded. “Are you in any state to…?”

He gave her a wry look. His eyes flitted down toward his pelvis, then back up at her. She turned bright red. “No, I mean, you’re kind of….”

“ _Emotionally_ compromised?” he said, with a hint of melodrama.

“Yes. Very.”

He huffed. “It’s not as if I’m worse. And… you know I’ve wanted this since I first saw you.” He paused a beat. “I mean, as an adult. Not in a strange way.”

She made a face.

“Maybe in a strange way.”

“This is just, wow,” she vibrated with laughter. “This is magic.”

“You’re mocking me.”

“You’re brilliant. I’m _seduced._ ”

He pinched her on her upper thigh, and she yelped and laughed and pecked him on the mouth. He pulled his arm out from under her and kissed her, flat on the cot, and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. His tongue slipped into her mouth. He gently pressed his weight against her legs, and they parted for him. He kissed down the center of her chest, off the edge of the cot and onto his knees, and moved aside the cloth of her garment exposing her breast, and kissed it. She exhaled and held the back of his head.

He pulled away and looked up at her as he pulled his undergarment off of him. Her breath was shaking, and she stared resolutely at his face, and he into hers. He grasped the edges of her pants and she lifted her hips to assist him, and as he cast them aside she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him back into a kiss, and lowered herself with him in tow, pulling his weight onto her.

—

They spent a day or two chasing one another around the camp fire, getting caught ravenously, and then eating ravenously, without a particular schedule. They napped at odd hours. It was, Rey felt, a distraction, but a welcome one. Ben still had his thousand yard stare; his presence waxed and waned through the day. She had had a few bad dreams about her spider-self and Finn’s corpse, but they only flashed in front of her eyes a few moments of the day, and had begun to fade.

They'd found a fruit-bearing tree, gathered everything up off it it, and Ben poured it into a pile. They had then gotten distracted. After their distraction, they sat on either side of the pile of the pile sour, jam-like fruits with fuzzy skins, knees to chest, toes touching, both naked except a towel across Ben's lap. They shoved the little fruit in their mouths greedily. Ben turned his head to spit a seed. He seemed mostly himself.

“I wonder why it’s harder for you?” she said. He didn't need to ask what she meant.

“I am… not so very far from who I was when I was nineteen, and can’t say I wouldn’t make the same choice. Do you blame yourself for what happened when you were eight?”

She shook her head. “It barely feels like me. I was taken advantage of.”

“That would probably help. I… Snoke did not make me kill Kontra. He suggested it,” he rubbed his mouth. “I did that. And everything after. One day like that isn’t really an excuse. I’d already made my choice. He just drove me harder than I was ready for. I’ve done worse since.”

She wanted to ask him what would make it right. They both knew there was nothing, so she was silent.

—

They fell asleep on the same cot, but he awakened first, and looked down at her. He took a moment. He brushed the hair off of her neck with a finger. Very carefully, he placed his hand over her neck. She startled awake.

“Hm?” she said, and pushed herself back into him.

“I’m going to show you something. Pay attention.”

She heard, in the Force, a loud, deafening cry. She tensed, her heart beating.

“What did you do?”

“About now, they’ll have a ship making the jump. They’re maybe fifteen minutes to planetfall.”

“We can still run” she tensed against him, and he held her to him.

“We can’t outrun a starship.”

“Why did you do this?”

“It has to happen this way.”

“We had a choice. We still have a choice.”

“Find me.” She felt herself start to fade into the same sedated torpor he’d kept her in as a child. He slowly eased himself out from under her, and stood, back arched defiantly toward the sky. He placed both light sabers side by side on the rock and looked from one to the other.

“I think I’ll leave you the better one, this time. You never know.” He smiled at her. “We might fight fate. Or maybe I’m just sabotaging myself again. It’ll be interesting to find out.” He slid Luke’s saber under her limp body. He thought of taking the cloak from her, but decided not to.

The shuttle first shone up in the sky the same as any other shooting star, then streaked through, its engines glowing blue and hot as skipped across the water, kicking up a plume of steam in its wake. It slowed as it approached the rocks.

Her eyes filled with rageful tears, but his face was at peace. He adjusted his ragged cuffs, putting on the body language of a commander of soldiers once more.

The shuttle door opened and several soldiers piled out, followed by a thin, red-haired man with a sneer. They pointed their guns at him and surveyed the beach. One of them looked straight at her and… passed by.

They didn’t see her. Ben had his fist clenched behind his back. He was concealing her. She recalled she knew herself how to hide, and added her strength to his efforts. She could not move, but she had just enough energy to do that.

“Hux himself. I thought it took uncommonly long for you to get here. To what do I owe the pleasure?” said Ben.

“The Supreme Leader suspects you of treason.”

“Who would suggest that to him?”

“He needed little suggestion. You were ordered to bring the girl to him, and you disappear for nearly a month.”

“It felt much longer.”

“Where is the girl?”

“Dead. She was an obstacle on my path, I crushed her.”

“Do you have the map?”

An eternity passed in the beat Ben took to think. In that moment, with no doubt about her loyalties, Rey reached out with her mind and gave it to him. His eyes fluttered. Hux tilted his body back, and the Storm Troopers shifted from leg to leg anticipating a possible fight. Ben tilted his head to the side and cracked his neck.

“No,” he said. The troopers grabbed him by the arms.

“This is hardly necessary. I’m coming voluntarily.”

“When you complete re-programming, I’ll be more sure of that.”

They dragged him in, and she watched them go. It was all she could do until the sedation wore off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Consider donating to Adam Driver’s charity, Arts in the Armed Forces, devoted to helping servicemen and women express themselves and participate in civilian life through the arts. I’m in no way affiliated, it’s just neat, it’s the holidays, and we’re obviously all fans of his, and I believe self-expression is an amazing gift to give to anyone. I donated.


	8. Part 8

As Rey’s paralysis wore off, she rolled out of the cot, then reached up to grab the lightsaber. She crawled and then, as strength returned to her, got on her knees, then to her feet, then broke into a full panicked sprint toward and past the C-Wing. She strained against water up to her knees. Her heart pounded; she’d learned to float but not to swim, and pushed herself to make it across in time. By the time she got fully across, it was up to her chest and had lifted her once or twice off of her feet.

She took a moment on the shore to breathe, bent over double, palms pressed into her knees, then ran again, up the path.

To where he’d planned to take her.

There was a clearing. It was very late afternoon, and the light was wan and sickly. There was a gravel yard with weeds sticking out, and three blackened footprints of former buildings. A few charred cross-beams and crumbling stone walls remained standing. 

Toward the middle of the yard was a pile of charred bones. Bodies had been piled there, then set ablaze. A low table had been pulled to the middle of the yard. It was weathered and stained dark, and the top had begun to rot. In the far end, closer to the bones, a little rusted axe was buried in it.

She didn’t need to look at the handle. It was the axe with her name on it.

She searched the area for signs the Jedi shuttle. It was not there. She looked for something else she could use. A scrap of metal. Anything. She recalled the Twi’lek Padawan was handy, and had replaced some shielding after a mission. She dug in the shrubbery behind the former library and found their tool kit and the damaged shielding that’d been discarded but not yet taken away for scrap.

And that was it.

She dragged it down the hill. She had the patching material she needed. It was all so simple. She would spend the night on the beach on the large island until the tide went out. She could get into the C-Wing, move it to the shore using the Force, work on it, and go straight to Luke. Begin re-training to his satisfaction. Reunite with her friends. Mount a daring rescue. Watch it fail and her Light snuff out. Take over the Galaxy and kill every living thing in it. It was all laid out for her, very neatly. 

It was fate. Her one, lonely, unwinding path.

She thought of everyone she’d met, in her past life, in her recent past, who might not be deaf to the Force. She held them in her mind, and as Ben had showed her, called to each of them up into the night.

She hoped something would change.

—

Finn woke up from a dead sleep in the barracks, and rolled out of the bottom bunk onto his hands and knees, jostling the bunk he was in. He looked around to see if he’d woken anyone. Poe rolled over and peered down. He was shirtless. His dogtags caught the dim light.

“Come back to bed,” Poe whispered. “It’s late.”

Finn shook his head and stumbled toward the locker room. Poe rolled his eyes and slid down the bunk bed frame to follow him quietly. One or two heads lifted to peek at the minor commotion, but when they saw the two, in their underwear, headed toward the locker room and together, most chuckled to themselves and went back to sleep.

In the locker room, Finn started getting dressed.

“What’s up?” said Poe.

“I’ve got a thing.”

“Mind letting me in on it?” Poe put his hand on Finn’s shoulder, and Finn looked up. “Hey. You having a moment? You need to talk?”

The door opened, and they looked over. In a long, white, fluid gown, hair in a long braid, no makeup, was General Leia, holding a lamp. A little over weeks ago, she had announced the death of Han Solo and their renewed commitment to fight the encroachment of the New Order despite the cost. Since then, she had lost weight, and her skin hung a little from her body. She had the red eyes of a woman who had gone without sleep that night, and the lined face of a woman who had gone without sleep many nights for many years.

Poe stood immediately to attention, chest out, saluting. Finn looked at him, then copied the gesture.

“At ease.”

Poe kicked his leg and clasped his hands behind his back. Finn followed his lead.

She looked at both of their faces, from Poe to Finn, before settling on Finn.

“You felt it?” she said. Finn nodded fervently. “Do you have any navigations experience? You know how to do the math for the jump?”

Finn bit his lip and shook his head. “Just gunning and, uh, sanitation.” He looked around, settled in a direction, and pointed, down and to his right, “It’s that way, though.”

She nodded, then looked over at Poe. She didn’t need to ask him what he was good at. She’d pinned a few medals on him.

“Did you feel anything?”

He frowned. “No, ma’am. Just following this guy.”

“Well, looks like I’m it,” she said. “Get dressed. We’re heading out. Poe, you’re captain, I’ll take navigator and co-pilot. Finn, you’re gunner. Meet me in twenty.”

She turned on her heel. Poe looked at Finn.

“Oh my _GOD_ ,” he mouthed, shaking with excitement. He whispered, “General Leia. My copilot is General Leia.” He clasped Finn by the forearms, tapped him on the cheek, then pointed at him as he walked to his locker.

“You, you’re my good luck charm. I’m taking you everywhere.”

He opened his locker and pulled on his flight suit. He grinned at Finn over his shoulder as he did the snaps in the front, then looked down to get the last two fiddly ones.

“You might want to think about that,” said Finn.

“—Oh?” said Poe. His tone was a little off.

“I’m not sure you’re going to like where we’re going.”

“Where are we going?”

“I… I don’t know.”

Poe turned and frowned at him. “That’s, like, unnecessary, man. Ominous. No need to be ominous. Get dressed unless you want to do your shooting in your shorts.”

Finn thought, and then grimaced at him. Poe opened his mouth, then shut it. 

“Oh. Oh, wait, not what I meant.”

“We had locker rooms in the First Order too, weirdo. I’ve heard some trash talk.”

They argued over whether it was intentional then jogged toward the hangar. Leia was already there, in the distance, next to one of the gunnery ships. She had straightened her braid and equipped herself in a simple flight suit under a cream leather jacket, with the piping in resistance colors. She pressed a few buttons on the console to open the hatch. Her blaster glinted on her hip.

Poe nudged Finn.

“She’s just always on it. Man. Perfect.”

“You got a crush?”

Poe looked over, shocked, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him. “No, man. I’m going to be her I grow up.”

Poe jogged ahead and presented himself to Leia, saluting, easily concealing his exhilaration under his steely will. Finn saw Leia look him up and down, and nod. She said something to him and he continued into the ship. As he climbed in and Poe could no longer see her face, Finn saw the briefest hint of mischievous affection creep across her face, the first Finn had seen her smile in weeks. She put her steely mask back on to look at Finn, who lagged behind. She raised her eyebrows and cocked her head toward the ship.

Finn suddenly understood, and broke into a jog as fast as he could and still maintain some dignity. He knew he was going to be Poe when he grew up, and now he knew Poe would be Leia. The faster he jogged, the faster he could catch up to them.

—

Leia grabbed the clipboard, pencil, and a star chart off the Navigator’s station and sat in the co-pilot’s chair. 

“Welcome aboard Resistance One,” she said. It was the designation for whatever ship she happened to be on. Poe could not contain himself any longer in front of her, and broke into a manic grin. She motioned at Finn to take the Navigator’s chair. Poe had already sat in the pilot seat. She worked as Poe brought them into orbit. After a minute, she handed the clipboard to Poe, who looked it over.

“Calculator?” he said to Finn. Finn grabbed it and handed it over. Leia snorted.

“You kids and your fancy things.”

Poe looked up at her. “It balances. Should take us here.” He pointed to a chart. She motioned Finn over, and he looked at it.

“Feel right?” she said. Finn thought, then nodded. He didn’t know why it was right, but it was. It was relatively close to Jakku, he recognized, just a couple star systems away.

“Show Finn how to punch it in.”

Finn looked at Leia, then Poe, “What, me?”

“You have to learn sometime. Unless you prefer grunt work?”

Finn cringed. “Uh, let me see that.” He took the clipboard from her.

Poe talked him through the general idea of what each command meant, and helped him enter it with the right syntax.

“You read it one more time, make sure it’s right, then you hit that button.”

“That’s it?”

“Oh, you got all that?” Finn said, surprised.

“Uh, no, but it’s something I could learn.”

“Good man,” said Leia. “You press it.”

Finn held his hand over it the button.

“— But wait for Mr. Dameron to put his seatbelt on, first. And put yours on.”

Poe climbed into his seat and gave him the thumbs up. Finn took a breath, savored the moment, and hit the button. They jumped.

—

Rey was lying on the rock on top of Ben’s cloak, halfway between sleep and wake when she heard the crack of a ship entering the atmosphere. She sat up and, once more, called out with the Force. This was a smaller ship than the last that had taken Ben away, with rounder, Resistance-manufactured angles. It came down toward the highest, flattest, emptiest point nearby— the hill top, where the Temple once stood.

“Damn,” she said. She pulled herself up and started walking toward the stairs, leaving Ben’s cloak behind.

—

Poe, Finn, and Leia prepared themselves to disembark.

“So, uh, in the excitement, I forgot to ask what we came here for” said Poe, as Leia handed Finn and he blasters, and she opened the hatch. The boys holstered theirs, but she unholstered her own as she climbed out.

“I’m interested to find out myself,” she said.

They stepped out into the night, and peered. Leia placed a lantern by the ladder they’d climbed down, and they looked at the charred, burned courtyard, the table, the pile of bones. Finn felt as if there was a draft, chilling him to his marrow, but the wind was still. Some of the long bones were terribly small.

“This… is messed up.” Poe looked over at Leia. She looked as if she’d been struck. She had her blaster in her hands, pointed at the ground, her face filled with grief and muted anger.

“You all right, ma’am?” said Poe.

She nodded. “I knew this was here. I just hadn’t… seen it.”

Poe started to ask her a question, when they heard a twig snap. Finn unholstered his weapon. Poe held off. Leia pointed her blaster out toward the noise.

“Who is there? Hands up,” she called. “I know you’re there.”

Rey revealed herself. She faded into view. She was in a fighting stance, with the lightsaber glowing in her hand, ready to bat away any fire.

“Rey?” said Finn.

Poe looked at Finn, then her. “ _That’s_ Rey?”

Leia slowly lowered her blaster. Rey breathed heavily and, after a moment, flicked her saber off. She slowly sank to her knees and started to sob.

“I thought it might not be you. I thought… maybe they’d find me instead,” she said.

Poe looked at Leia and Finn, who just stared at Rey, and then back at the girl. Her clothes were stained with what he recognized was blood that had been rinsed out, and had both browned in the elements and her own sweat and bleached in the sun. She had a brown tan, with a hint of chapped sunburn across her cheeks. Her arms were covered with scratches from pushing through brush. Through her thin clothes he saw, on her chest below her collar bone, above her heart, the yellowed remnants of almost-healed bruising. Her fingers had been badly burned, but had mended.

She’d been there a while.

He walked toward her and kneeled by her.

“Hey, hey. It’s OK. You’re safe, now,” He gave her a rakish smile. She looked up at him, and threw her arms around his neck sobbing. He made a judgement call, and lifted her up to carry her back, his arms under her backside. She clung to him like a child.

“Is this who we came for?” he asked. Leia frowned and nodded. 

“Anything else?” he asked.

“No,” said Leia. Finn also shook his head.

“Then let’s get the hell out of here.”

—

Poe placed her in the Navigator’s chair and got her a canteen full of water.

“I’m sure you could use something a little stronger, but let’s make sure you’re hydrated first,” he said.

“I’ve… I’ve had plenty of water,” she said.

“Want to skip straight to the good stuff? My kind of lady.” He pulled his flask from his hip pocket and offered it to her.

“It should wait,” said Leia.

“Hm?”

“I’d like a debriefing first,” said Leia.

Poe frowned. He looked at Finn, then Leia. Finn had only stared, and Rey wouldn’t look at Finn.

“May I speak to you in the store room, madam?” said Poe. Leia inclined her head and followed him.

Finn and Rey sat near one another for a moment, in silence.

“Hi,” said Finn.

“Hi,” said Rey.

—

Poe had somehow convinced Leia the debriefing could wait. Very quietly, they brought Rey to Leia’s quarters, where she bathed and slept. Leia laid out old clothes of hers, having decided on Rey’s behalf her old tunic was ruined beyond washing or repair. It was a soft, dark grey blouse and black rinding pants, not dissimilar in cut from Rey’s old clothes, but somewhat less structured. Rey kept her old boots and Ben’s belt. She sat in Leia’s quarters and waited to speak with her. They’d left the lightsaber with her.

—

There were murmurs when Leia slept in her office that night and left Finn and Poe guard on guard in shifts front of her quarters, but nobody questioned her directly. Rey did not ask if she was allowed to leave the room. She was not.

—

Leia came in with Finn. She motioned for Poe, who was on guard, to follow her. Rey was waiting at the table for them, as if she knew they’d been coming. She’d made tea for them. Finn stood by the door. Leia and Poe sat.

“Made yourself comfortable?” asked Leia, and looked for a reaction. Rey stared at her, then spoke.

“I need to speak to Luke,” she said.

“I’m sure you do,” said Leia.

“Would you bring me to him? We all need to talk.”

“We can talk now.”

Poe shifted, uncomfortable with the tone. He cleared his throat. Leia looked over at him, and nodded.

“Rey,” he said. She glanced over at him. “If I hear right, last our friend Finn saw you, Kylo Ren had knocked you out. He got Finn pretty good, and he doesn’t remember much after that. That about right, Finn?”

Finn nodded.

“Chewbacca found him, but not you. He was passed out for a week. We were worried about you.”

“I thought you were dead,” said Finn, quietly.

“I’m… I’m sorry. I’m OK.”

Leia nodded. She exchanged looks with Poe. Poe continued.

“I got caught. Back on Jakku. It was, uh…” he squinted, “… well, getting beaten up wasn’t the worst part, right? I told him some stuff I didn’t want to. I felt pretty bad about it. You know who I’m talking about, right?”

She nodded, “Ben.”

Leia’s eyes shot wide open. Poe frowned, not recognizing the name. He saw Leia’s face, and knew they were talking about the same person. He opened his mouth to speak, and Leia put his hand on his shoulder to quiet him.

“Did you give him the map?”

“Yes.”

“Voluntarily?”

Rey ground her teeth, “Yes.”

Poe screwed his face up, “General, with respect, torture—“

“Are you pregnant?”

“ _General._ ” Poe leapt to his feet, and Finn started stalking over. Each woman held one hand up. Leia looked at Poe and motioned for him to sit again. Finn shook, then began to pace.

"I don't know. It’s possible.” 

Leia, Finn, and Poe all winced.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” said Leia. She took a small metal case out of her breast pocket, and from it produced a small white clay pipe, a little horn full of leaves, and a lighter. “I don’t like to in my quarters, but I could use it.” She filled the bowl, lit it, and took a puff.

“How did you know?” said Rey.

“My grandmother Shmi, as far as we could tell, wasn’t… shall we say, fond of men. Hadn’t _known_ one, if you follow me. Didn’t seem to be an obstacle. If the Force wants you pregnant, you get pregnant. You seem like the type.”

Poe winced in mild disgust. Leia sucked the stem of her pipe and nodded at him.

“Yeah. That’s the kind of thing that turned me off of getting any training in it. I still feel a thing or two, if it’s obvious.” she looked back at Rey, “It’s not so much I feel you’re pregnant _now_ , more like you’re being pulled toward that. You feel it, right? Like we’ll have another generation soon enough, to go through this shit all over again pretty soon now. Fresh meat for the grinder. That’s how this goes. I didn’t care much for the idea of learning how to channel stuff like that. I like finding my own fate.”

Rey shook. “That’s how you know? That’s it?”

“You also stank of him,” she said. “You don’t forget what your son smells like. Never. You’ll understand soon,” she said, matter of factly.

Rey breathed more heavily. “I need to talk to Luke.”

“He doesn’t need to talk to you,” said Leia.

“We went after I woke up,” said Finn. “Stayed there for a week. He just acted like we weren’t there.”

“He’ll talk to me.”

“I’m not helping you,” said Leia. “You’re going to keep right on doing this, but I’m not going to be a part of it.”

“I could escape.”

“I don’t doubt it. I left the lightsaber with you. It’d just be something you’d have to find, right? Kill a few men on your way out to get it, shoot right out the door, go see Luke. Figured I’d save some blood when you escaped by saving you a stop on the way out. You can just go, if you want. Won’t even prevent you from stealing a ship. _But—”_

“But what?”

“Chewie’s already there, and if he doesn’t hear from me every half hour, he’ll shove Luke onto a ship and get out of there whether Luke likes it or not. You’ve met Chewie, right? A couple of times? Hard guy to say ‘no’ to. Luke could take him, but I’m sure he’s not up for killing Chewie just to stay.”

Rey clenched her fists.

“That’s what I thought,” said Leia.

“You should move Luke now.”

“Why?”

“Ben has the map.”

“That’s what’s bothering me,” Leia leaned forward. “Last we heard from Chewie, just a few minutes ago, Luke’s dandy. Why isn’t he dead? Kylo Ren has the map. Snoke isn’t the kind to wait, unless he’s got something else planned. Any idea what that might be?”

“Ben has the map. And... he won’t give it up to Snoke. He’d die first. That’s why Luke’s alive. But we don’t have a lot of time.”

Leia leaned back in her chair, hard, and thought. She brought her pipe to her mouth, and almost bumped her front teeth with the stem. She leaned over to Poe and whispered him something, and Rey heard him whisper something back to her. Leia nodded.

Leia turned once more to Rey. “I think you need to talk to Luke,” she said.


	9. Part 9

Poe landed the vessel next to the Millennium Falcon, and Chewie was outside to meet them. He bellowed at Rey and clapped her on the back. Leia had informed him Rey was alive, and had been found after spending time in the hands of Kylo Ren. None of them— not Finn, Rey, Poe, or Leia — elected to fill him in on additional details of the extent of her collaboration. It was not necessary, for one thing. 

Before Chewie’s life-debt to Han, he’d been a soldier, then a slave, and he did not have to be told that captivity might make it difficult for someone to think straight. Leia was confident he would be on his guard around her, and so spared him the additional grief.

Chewbacca bellowed and led the way, up the hill. The terrain was reminiscent of Kos, green and rocky. It seemed somehow appropriate to Rey that this, the site of the first Jedi temple, and Kos were similar. Full circle.

Luke was standing, facing the edge of the cliff, when they approached. Rey drew her lightsaber, once his, from her belt, and held it out to him, and he turned to look at her a moment before drawing his own.

He was old. His stance was of a man once well-trained, but not in the condition or practice to make a real fight of it.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” said Rey.

“I know what you’re here for.”

“Then why do you oppose me?”

“I oppose all practitioners of the Dark Side.”

“I don’t serve the Dark Side.”

Luke laughed, bitterly. “That’s not your decision.”

Leia cleared her throat. “This is epic and all, but I’d appreciate it if you gave her a listen.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking, Leia.”

“I might know a thing or two,” said Leia, “Try me.”

Luke signed and put away his saber and rolled his eyes. “Would you like dinner? I made extra.” He motioned them down the other side of the promontory.

Leia looked between Poe and Finn, who stood with their mouths open. “Isn’t he sweet?”

Luke directed him to a little hut of stone and wood, and a set table. “One or two of you will have to just hold your plate in your lap.” He handed out flat bread and spicy lentils, and poured all but Rey a little wine. He pointedly gave her a glass of water, which she accepted with a glare. Chewie took his bowl and the remainder of the jug of wine with him to stand guard outside.

Rey pursed her lips. “Pretty hard to get this stuff in a place like this.”

“You would know, hm? Someone had Chewie smuggle me a care package after Han died. I’m going to get fat.”

“You’re welcome,” said Leia.

They ate quietly.

Poe leaned over to Finn. “This is weird.”

Finn nodded. “I don’t think talking will make it less weird.”

“I just wanted to put it out there. I don’t like it rattling around.”

“Thanks,” said Finn.

Leia coughed and glanced over at the boys, who clammed up.

Rey put down her plate. “We’re going to go rescue him,” said Rey.

Poe’s brows furrowed then rose. Finn nudged him in a gesture of I-told-you-so.

Luke nodded. “Yes. We are.”

“Well, that was easy,” muttered Leia.

It was too easy.

“Why?” said Rey.

“You’re the one who came here. You tell me. I assume it’s because you love him.”

“I need to take a walk,” said Poe.

“Mr. Dameron,” said Leia, “I’d like you to stay a moment.”

“I just, I find this a little offensive.”

Luke and Leia looked at him quizzically. Rey’s cheeks burned with embarrassment. Poe stammered out “It’s just, you know, she obviously needs some help. Like, even if she cooperated, that… that coulda been me. When you’re tortured, stuff happens. I don’t like talking about her like this, as if she’s normal and doesn’t need help.”

Rey nodded fervently “That’s why I need to get him. It’s not because… I’m not sure I even like him right now. It’s been…” she bit her lower lip to stop it trembling. “What happened to him, that could have been me. He was groomed and coerced for years. That could have been me.”

“He was the dude who did it to you,” said Finn.

“There’s more to it.” said Rey. 

Leia nodded in confirmation.

“It’s interesting you think it’s not you,” said Luke. Rey looked up at him. “You were corrupted by Snoke, first, and utterly. Kylo Ren converted after you.”

“I-I was a child. That was not something I did.”

“The refrain of the Dark Side,” said Luke. “Same excuses.”

“You’re saying that as if I’m not even a person. Like you weren’t there, and I was just a thing used by the Dark Side and you’re bravely opposed to it.”

“I didn’t turn you,” said Luke, “I didn’t kill Leto. Or the other Padawans. Or the Younglings.”

“And that sounds like the excuses of the Light side. Above everything, like you had nothing to do with it. You had everything to do with this.”

“I’m not going to be blamed for—”

“No, you listen. I do not give a damn about being your— your foil in this bloody holy war. I have a responsibility to someone. There is another person out there, who could have been me, and I’m going to rescue him because nobody else is going to. You are coming with me because we were your responsibility, too. Not just the ones who died, us, and you ditched us to live on this rock and feel sorry for yourself!. It’s not your fault what happened, but it’s your fucking responsibility, and you are going to help me save him.”

“You can’t save him,” Luke said. “I spent a decade trying to save him. I forsook every Jedi teaching that said that you can’t fix someone once they’ve been corrupted by the Dark Side. I spent another ten years counting the cost of that mistake.”

He picked up his napkin from his lap, wiped the tips of his fingers, and then dropped it peevishly. Rey felt the Force echo with the strength of his masterful self-control.

Rey thought.

“We don’t have to keep doing this,” she said. “This has been going long for longer than any of us have been alive, and we’ve just been stuck in its wake. We can break away from this. It doesn’t have to be this way. I think, if we go to him, it’ll matter. We might fail, but it will matter.”

Luke looked over at Leia. “Are you in on this madness?”

“You’re the one who volunteered to go without question. I’m thinking.”

“What do you think?”

“The girl raises some interesting points.”

“I’m lost,” volunteered Finn.

“I wish I were,” said Poe.

Leia stood, then heavily plopped herself by Luke, who was brooding. She knocked her shoulder into his. “What’s your angle? You don’t seem to keen on doing it. Just… don’t?”

Rey opened her mouth, and Leia waved and shushed her. Luke sighed.

“As… this one,” he waved at Rey “knows, the Great Work of a Sith is conquering death. Using it, amassing power with it. Killing his Master. Using it to push out the Light within him.”

“Why didn’t Ben fall when he… killed Han?” said Rey.

“What makes you think he didn’t?” said Luke. Rey just stared. Luke looked away, “It was masochistic, and there was a Dark power in that, but it’s not the same as killing his Master. Or if… I’d killed my Father, when he was a Sith. My Father was also my mentor, and he was strong in the Force. It would have tapped me right into the Darkness if I had taken his life. My Father gave his own life to save me from that. Anyway, Han was deaf as a post to the Force, like that one.”

He pointed at Poe, who frowned.

“Killing him him would be corrupting,” said Luke, “but it’s not the same kind of blood sacrifice. For the Jedi, the Great Work is also conquering death. By accepting it, not by wielding it.”

“That’s interesting,” said Leia, flatly. “What’s that mean?”

“I feel… this is how I’m going to die. I’m called to accept it. This is my final work.”

The words hung there. Leia began to breathe heavily.

“I don’t want that,” Rey said.

“Not your choice,” said Luke.

“How do we do different?” said Rey.

“Let me explain what seems to have gone over your head,” he said. He grabbed their spoons and laid them on the table. He held one up.

“This is me. I go to Snoke to distract him. He kills me.” he dropped the spoon, and picked another one up, “You go to Kylo Ren, he fights you. We lose those two,” he didn’t pick up anything, he just waived his hands at Finn and Poe. Finn winced, Poe threw up his hands.

“One of you, you or Kylo Ren, dies,” continued Luke, “Doesn’t matter. Whoever lives takes Snoke. The. End. That’s it. And if we’re very unfortunate, you’ll leave a someone or two who is small and angry and lonely to either turn toward the Dark or Light and have this start all over again. If we’re blessed, somehow, you or Ben will just burn down the Galaxy before that happens.”

“This seems like a great plan,” said Leia. “I can see why you agreed to it immediately.”

“At least I’ll have completed my journey in the Light, on my terms. That’s the only victory available to me, and I’ll take it. If we wait, it’ll happen a different way,” said Luke. “It’ll happen a year from now, or two, but all of us will be together. We’ll be captured, or we’ll do it as part of an offensive strike, but this will happen.”

“I don’t want to be a part of this,” said Leia.

“You’re not.” said Rey, bitterly.

“What do you mean?” said Leia.

“I didn’t see you there.”

“…What?” said Luke.

“She’s not there. I didn’t see her.”

“You’ve seen this?”

“I’ve— I’ve felt it.”

“That’s not what you said. I’ve felt this. You’ve seen it?”

Rey swallowed and nodded. Luke held out his left hand to her.

“Show me.”

Rey hesitated, then took it. She recalled the terrible moment. Poe and Finn’s bodies on the stairs. Her body twisting and changing as the Dark covered her. Luke’s own plea to speak to Leia. And, despite herself, over and over again, the contents of Ben’s head as he pled to Rey to let him die.

Luke let go of her hand, then passed his own over his face.

“I’m sorry it’s hopeless,” said Rey, “but I have to try to fight it. Please.”

“That… that….” said Luke.

“What?” said Leia.

“I’m thinking.”

“What’s there to think about?” Said Leia.

“Ben accepted his own death,” said Luke.

Rey nodded, slowly. “He did. I thought he was just suicidal, but…. What’s that mean?” said Rey.

“It means we don’t have to save him. We need do need rescue him, but… we just don’t have to save him. He’ll… he’ll turn toward the Light. If we give him the chance, he’ll come back to us. He’ll save himself.” he permitted himself a grim, triumphant smile and looked at Leia.

Leia was not having it. “And will he come back alive, or like our dear father?” she said.

“We’re all going to die someday,” said Luke.

Leia rolled her eyes and stood. “I’m getting some wine from the Wookie. I’m in, that responsibility talk got me. Someone has to fix this mess. Just let me know exactly how we’re going to kill my son, and I’ll see what the Resistance and I can do to assist. If we hurry, the flowers from Han’s funeral will still be fresh and I can save some scratch.”

She stalked out to get miserably drink with Chewbacca.

Rey swallowed. “So, uh, it can’t be me who kills Snoke.”

Luke shook his head “Or me. One of you, you or Ben, would just kill me, then you one another, then the remaining one Snoke. Checkmate.”

“I could refuse to kill Snoke.”

“Then Ben will win the duel, or you won’t be given a choice. And we’ll just have another confrontation with him down the road. No, Snoke has to go.”

“We could promote a pawn,” said Rey. She pointed at Finn. “Him?”

“W...What,” said Finn.

“That’s not necessary—“ started Poe

“I’m a JEDI?” said Finn. His face split into a huge grin.

Luke and Rey looked Finn up and down and chorused, “No.” His face fell.

“With training, you could be. But it takes time,” said Luke. “Anyway, if I train him, it’s the same thing. Months of delay. Then we just have another piece. It doesn’t end the game, or change outcome. If anything, it just lends it momentum. Patterns repeating.”

“What… what if you just showed him one thing. Just one trick, no philosophy. Just have him copy you. Does that make him your Padawan?”

Luke bit his lip.

“…Maybe not. It’s very risky, however. You don’t really ‘win’ against the Universe on technicalities.”

“What if you showed it to him, and, uh… he didn’t teach anyone. Someone just was there when he was practicing and uh… picked it up by watching? Clearly he’s not anyone’s Master. Clearly he’s not important. He’s just a guy.”

Luke’s eyebrows went up, then further up. He stared out the door and exhaled, slowly. He dared to let a little giddy energy flit across his face.

“I’m getting kind of offended on his behalf here,” said Poe. Finn put his hand over his friend’s hand.

“It’s… not fun to hear, but… I can help?”

Rey nodded. “I can’t do this without you.”

“Is it important? Even if I’m not?” Finn said.

“More than you know. You are important, just... you know?”

He nodded. “Will I die?”

Rey swallowed and slowly nodded. “I think so. But if we don’t try, everything’s lost. Not just Ben. Everything. Please believe me.”

Finn looked at Poe, then back at her. Poe shook his head almost imperceptibly. He looked back at Rey.

“… How can I help?”

Poe looked up at the ceiling and mouthed “Shit.” He looked down again, “Well, I’m going where he goes. Guess I’m in.”

“You don’t have to,” said Finn.

“Naw, naw,” he looked back at Rey, “Uh… I guess if that bastard could have been you, and I coulda been you… I think I get it. We can’t just leave him. That’s what makes us different, right?”

“Thanks,” said Rey, and she burst into tears. Finn grabbed Poe and Rey by one hand each, and Poe grasped tighter onto Finn’s hand, and reached out to Rey, who took his. Poe squeezed a few tears out, then squinted in embarrassment. He let go of Rey’s hand and rubbed his nose with his sleeve, before sitting up straight and giving them a lopsided grin.

“Sounds like we’ve got ourselves a party for a suicide mission,” he said, and turned to Luke, “What’s the plan?”


	10. Part 10

Ben was in holding, on the  _Finalizer_.  He did not open his eyes when General Hux opened his cell door, escorted by Phasma.

He sat, cross-legged on his bunk, eyes closed, and breathed.  The metal bed and slight chill sapped warmth from his skin, and he concentrated on that feeling.  They had given him a mild sedative, effective at dampening his connection to the Force, and it was all he could do to stay sharp.  He could faintly feel Hux and Phasma well enough to identify them, but couldn’t do much beyond that.

He tried to clamp a vein in Hux’s neck shut anyway.  Hux merely believed he had an itch, and scratched his neck.

Ben sighed and opened his eyes.  His clothes had been confiscated.  He was only permitted a loose-fitting pair of  _braies_  in a rough-spun, undyed fabric.  He had also not been permitted to shave.

The Order’s first language was symbol.  It was why Snoke had chosen Ben, a Skywalker, as his Apprentice and high spiritual leader.  Hux, as the First Order’s military leader, was nothing if not a master of aesthetics.  The garb of Kylo Ren’s Order drew upon the vocabulary of a prior age.  The rough-spun cloaks and surcoats of ancient crusades.  Sacrifice of the self through concealment.  All plain to true believers of the educated class of the First Order.

So, giving Kylo Ren nothing to wear but period-accurate drawers from the same age which had inspired the uniform of the Kights of Ren’s was, to Ben, an unsubtle mockery.  Phasma, who had electroplated her armor with the chromium from Palpatine’s vessel, undoubtedly understood the depth of the slight.

“General.  Captain.  If I’d known I’d have company, I would have dressed for the occasion.”   His cheek ached when he spoke where Phasma had broken it three days prior.

“Hold out your arm,” said Hux.  Phasma pulled a canister and medical needle from her belt.

Ben complied.

“Am I being moved?” said Ben.  

Hux’s face became stonier, confirming it for him.

“I thought so.  You wouldn’t be in here with me if you didn’t have to be.”

“Ridiculous.  I always have time to visit my old friend.”

Pharma grabbed the fleshy part of Ben’s palm to hold it still with one hand, and the needle in her other.  Ben’s stomach muscles tensed as the needle entered his inner arm.  He felt his lips begin to numb as he faded, and laughed in surprise at the odd, out-of-body sensation.

“You’re afraid,” said Ben.

Hux’s eyes flicked upward toward the ceiling, then over to Phasma.  They were both aware he couldn’t use his tricks to read them.

“Of what?” Phasma said.

Ben began to shake with laughter.  

“There’s five hundred thousand of you, and one of me.  I have you outnumbered.”

He laughed as his vision blurred and faded, and past the point of lightheadedness and nausea.

He laughed until Phasma struck him, and he was silent.

—

After dinner, Poe, Luke, Rey, and Finn met Leia and Chewbacca on the top of the steep promontory where they’d first encountered Luke.  Chewie had constructed the beginning of a bonfire, and had gotten the rest of the wine from the Millennium Falcon.  He correctly read Poe’s body language and handed him a jug of wine.

“When do we, uh, start?” said Finn, preoccupied.  Luke glanced over at Rey, and they sat, facing one another.

“It’s just one trick,” said Rey.  “We can show you now.”

“Just watch us, and follow our lead.” said Luke.  “They’re not very hard once you know you can do them.  Don’t overcomplicate it.”

Finn nodded and swallowed.  

Chewie bent by the pile of branches, took his nowcaster off his back, and shot it.   Poe and Leia jumped, and Leia burst out laughing as the pile of branches burst into flame.  Finn, Luke, and Rey, however, had not flinched; they were lost in their little world, as Luke and Rey cleared their mind, and Finn stood, transfixed, watching them.

Leia and Poe clinked together their drinks.  Leia threw back her head to chug from the bottle, and Poe, followed suit.  Leia came up first for air.  Poe glanced over at Finn, Rey, and Luke and nearly dropped his bottle onto his teeth and he swung it back down.  Leia elbowed Chewbacca, and they laughed at him.

“General—!” exclaimed Poe.  He pointed at the two seated Force-users.

“I’ve probably seen it before,” she said, but look anyway, just in time to see Finn start to copy them.  She squinted as she watched them and comprehended what they were doing.

“Well.  Isn’t that something?” she said.

—

Afterwards, they all got very drunk, with the exceptions of Luke, who only got moderately drunk, and Rey, who abstained.

Leia told them stories about Han, and his stupid hunk of junk, and his stupid face, which she missed dearly.

Rey told them the story of how she and Han had met, even though Finn had been there and Poe had heard it from Finn.  The story didn’t really have an end.  She just stopped speaking at the point of the story when they parted, and did not finish it, as if refusing to recount his death made it a little less real.

Leia slept in Luke’s cabin.  Chewie slept under the stars.  The other three bunked on the Falcon and the Resistance shuttle.

They left in the morning.  Back at base, Leia began planning their offensive, to begin by week’s end.

—

Leia had called her highest officers to an all-hands meeting.  The Resistance buzzed with excitement: Luke, who had not been seen in a decade, had been spotted passing through the hallways.  Most of the young people had to be told it was him, but they knew the garb, and from the way he held himself that, yes, that was a Jedi.  He could be nothing but.

A small group of pilots saw him say a word or two to Finn in the hall and pat him on the shoulder before walking toward the meeting.  They hung back, then jogged up to him.

“Is that…?”

“Oh, just Luke.  Skywalker.”

“…Dude.”

“Yeah.  Yeah.  He offered to become my mentor. I said I’d think about it.”

They each made faces at him in various flavors of annoyed to skeptical.  He beamed.  “Well, you don’t have to believe me, whatever.  I have a meeting to go to.  Kind of a big deal.”

They watched him go.

“That guy….” one of them said.

“That guy, what?” said Poe, behind them.  They startled.

“Uh, nothing.”

“Finn and I have a meeting with the General and Luke Skywalker, and some of the higher-ups.  If you’ve got anything you’ve put off to later, ship maintenance, letters to family… I think now’s a good time to get that done.  You hear me?”

They held their breath, and one by one, scattered.

—

Rey, Finn, and Luke were already seated by the time Poe got there.  A few more people filed in.  Admiral Akbar took his seat toward the front alongside Snap Wexley, recon pilot and sometime Blue Leader.   C-3PO stood in mostly-in-the-way crowd wrangler. Leia checked her watch, then took the podium and looked around the room.  It quieted.

“Ladies, gentlemen, other.  Thank you.  I’ve a proposal for our next move.”

She clicked the slide viewer in her hand.  A hologram animation of the Starkiller exploding and the  _Finalizer_  jumping away popped up.

“The destruction of the Starkiller has, for the moment, back on their heels to regroup.  The lone advantage of operating independently from the Senate was that we have lost many friends but little infrastructure.  Based on our intelligence,” she glanced over at Rey, Finn, and Snap, “we believe we know where they’re regrouping.”

She brought up a hologram of a dull greenish-grey planet with milky swirls.

“This is Vjun.  Luke, could you tell us about Vjun?”

Luke cleared his throat and looked around the full room.  Akbar, and Nien Nunb nodded at him, and he nodded back.  “According to the research I accumulated a few years back, Darth Vader kept a stronghold here.  Bast Fortress.”  Leia clicked to an artist’s rendering of a strange, tall spire.  It was built into and on top of the side of a mountain, and echoed the shape of the mountain’s peak in an elongated, rocky spire.

“The New Order likes its symbols,” continued Luke, “and based on their troop movements and their culture, this is certainly where their leader is holed up.  There’s one hangar and launchpad, here, toward the top, and one entrance at the bottom.  Ammonia atmosphere, hydrochloric acid rain.”

“We’re not equipped for a large ground attack of that area,” said Akbar.  “We have only a few ventilators which would hold in those conditions.  We could bomb it, but we could not lay siege with ground troops.”

“Oh, It gets worse.” said Leia.  The image pulled out, to the planet and the flickering planetary shield.

“The shield.  It’s beamed from the surface of the planet, not a moon.  That leaves weak points, of course, but those weak points are being re-enforced by two Resurgent class Destroyers.  We have reason to believe one of them is the  _Finalizer_.  We could’ve done the… Solo maneuver, come in at light speed and brake, but they’ve learned from last time and placed the shield closer to the planet.”

Poe leaned over to Finn and whispered, “Not enough braking distance, no dice.”

“This seems like a most unwise target at this point in the campaign,” said Akbar.

“It is, for an invasion or a bombing campaign.  I’m proposing a targeted coup.”

A loud murmur rippled through the hall.

Luke piped up, “We believe, based on their ship movement and movements in the Force, their leadership and military heroes— General Hux, Kylo Ren, Captain Phasma, and Snoke himself are there, or will be in a few short hours.  We could take them all out, here and now, and cripple them for the foreseeable future.”

“Wouldn’t that be the end of it?”  Said Poe.

“The First Order, like the Empire, is an idea.  You can’t kill an idea, son,” said Leia.  “You can just make it harder to implement for a while.  Anyway, we’ll use the  _Horn_.  One ship with an infiltration party and several decoys will break through.”

“The  _Horn_  is not yet finished.  It is defenseless,” said Akbar.

Leia nodded.  “I know.”

She pulled up an animation of the  _Horn_. It was ring-shaped, an unusual shape for a ship since the dawn of artificial gravity several millennia prior.  The image showed the final mockup, with its turbo-laser towers.  In reality, they had never been installed.

“For those of you who don’t know, we’ve been working on the  _Horn_  for some time.   It is designed to disrupt the planetary shield here,”  she pointed at the hole in the middle.  The ring had six hangars with three ships each around the inside of it, faced toward the middle.  An animation played of the Horn jumping out of hyperspace near the planet, hitting the planetary shield at near-light speed.  Its flexible hull compressed, and then using the energy generated from the compression, it released a burst of energy toward its middle and broke a hole in the shield.  Little holographic X-wings poured out of the hangers in the middle of the ring, and then additional squadrons which had jumped in separately from the  _Horn_  swooped through.

Unfortunately, their fleet had been cut to less than half in the previous attack.  Those additional ships, they all knew, would not be there.

“That’s how we punch through,” said Leia.  “Two more were under construction in the Hosnian system, but they are, of course, now gone.  Unfortunately, I don’t believe we’ll be able to construct another two before the plans for the  _Horn_  leak.  I’d like to use the  _Horn_  once while it’s still a surprise.”

Akbar continued his protest, “In our current state, we cannot get enough bombers in to destroy the fortress before they themselves are destroyed.  This feels foolish and desperate.”

“That’s the idea.  They’ll assume it’s a desperate mission gone awry, and hopefully won’t be looking hard enough for an infiltration.”

“This  _does_  sound like a suicide mission,” said Snap.

“I’m not asking anyone to do anything I wouldn’t do myself.  I plan to be aboard the Horn,” said Leia.

“Pri—General, reconsider.” said C-3PO  “The Resistance will be weakened without you.”

She laughed.  “How many ways do I need to say it?   _I don’t plan on dying_.  I plan on getting these kids in and then jumping out of there with them before it all goes to hell.”

“I missed the escape part of the plan, General,” said Snap.  She faced him and smiled.

“I’m sending them Poe Dameron, and Luke Skywalker, who need no introduction.  I’m sending Finn, who shoved their Captain Phasma in a garbage chute.  I’m sending them this young lady, who I hear kicked Kylo Ren’s ass so hard she had to kick it back to life.  I’m not worried about them.  If this party can’t get it done and come home safe, it can’t be done, now or ever.  You got it?”

Dissent quelled, Leia continued her briefing.  At the end of it, she ordered everyone take eight hours of leave, and had the Horn jump to their location to begin preparation.

—

Ben’s cell at Vjun was decidedly less comfortable than the one on the  _Finalizer_.  Bast Fortress did not have the clean, sterile aesthetic of the  _Finalizer_ , nor its tight, computer-controlled security.  The First Order, therefore, relied on less civilized methods of restraining him.

Ben had been shackled, arms over his head, in a wide, drafty basement room near the oxygen reclamation facility within the fortress.  No light, no additional clothing to fend off the damp, just the endless looping hum of the fans and the ache in his shoulders and stomach.  They hadn’t bothered to feed him on a schedule.  He had been hallucinating for several hours from the sensory deprivation.   Just repeating patterns of color and light, but the precursor to something worse, perhaps.

So when there was a dancing light at the end of the long hall-like cell, he did not give it any special attention over other dancing lights, as it was no more likely to be real than any other.  A little, curled up figure padded toward him.  It had a scar on its face, illuminated by the lamp he held over his head.  In the other withered hand, it held a folded stack of cloth with a helmet on top of it.  A little behind him, two figures in white stormtrooper armor danced into view.

“You,” it said to Ben, “are in a state.”

Ben paused to decide if he thought it was real, and erred on the side of caution.

“What is your bidding, Supreme Leader?”

“You’re not feigning loyalty to me, after all of this, my Apprentice?”

“I have feigned nothing.  My loyalty is to the power of the Dark Side, which, by the grace of your guidance, has made me strong.  If you did not believe that, I would not be alive.  I will simply use this experience make me stronger, as I did when I destroyed my father and the girl.”

“Both must have been equally difficult for you.”

Ben did not reply.  Snoke sneered.  “You cannot fake devotion, Kylo Ren.”

Snoke threw the pile of clothing in his hand at Ben’s feet.  The helmet bounced off of the wall and rolled.  Ben heard something wrapped within the robes rattle and clink softly.   Snoke signaled the guards to undo Ben’s chains.  As they loosed him, Ben fell on his hands and knees to the ground and gazed up at Snoke.  Sweat rolled off of his back and onto his shoulders.

“Do you want to kill me, boy?”

Ben didn’t answer.  He stared up at Snoke through his eyelashes.  With one hand, he felt around within the robe for the metal object he knew was there.  It was, indeed, his saber.

“I believe in your devotion, Kylo Ren, although I have long known it is not to me, but to the higher calling of the Dark Side.  The girl is coming.  Once I realized who she was, it was very easy to determine her location.  You never forget a student.” 

Ben tightened his grip around the saber.  Snoke waved his hand at him in disgust.

“Save your anger.  We will be here to welcome her.   I believe in this you and I are allies.  I have felt what you have seen.  I’m giving you free rein of the castle to do as you please and prepare for her arrival.”

Snoke turned his back and began the walk down the long cell.  He called behind him “I’ll let you tell General Hux yourself.  I think you’ll like the look on his face.”

Ben waited for the sound of the door to close and lock.  It did not.  He sat for a long time, clutching his saber, before dropping it and grabbing the cuirass and robe in his shaking hands and pulling them over him.  Dressed, he crept to the open cell door and out into the hall.

The hall was lit.  He took a moment to allow his eyes to adjust.  At one end was a grand staircase, and another the door to the oxygen scrubbing equipment.  The chiseled black stone shone with shiny flecks of gold and silver.  He walked toward the infernal humming of the oxygen scrubbers, and, using the force to steady himself, kicked down the door.  He flicked on his lightsaber and brought it down onto the machinery, and it shuddered and melted with a satisfying crash.  He hurled his saber into one of the fans, and then pulled it back to him through the blade of the other one, and the fans sheered themselves apart with the sudden stress of the drag upon the blades.  A chunk of metal embedded itself in the stone behind him.

The general alarm started whooping.  Stormtroopers began pouring in.  The air smelled faintly of piss as ammonia began leaking into the fortress.

“At ease,” he said, and pushed past them.  Hux was stalking down the stairs at the opposite end, and did not spot Ben until he was halfway down the long hall.   He froze, wild eyed, and took in the image of Kylo Ren, lightsaber burning like the sword of a vengeful deity.  Ben swung his sword around in a showy flourish before swinging it above his head.

“Hello, Hux.”

And he brought it down again.  

The look on Hux’s face  _was_  almost worth it.

Hux fell.  Ben swung around, back to the wall, waiting for the Stormtroopers in the hall to fall on him, but they merely kept their hands on their blasters.  He held the weapon out in front of him, his pulse rising.  He backed slowly toward the staircase, and they parted for him.  He heard the distinctive sound of Phasma’s armor clanking down the stairs.

“Kylo Ren,” she said.  He turned toward her.  She knelt as best she could on the staircase.  The other Stormtroopers followed her lead.  Hidden by his helmet, his eyes widened.

“The Supreme Leader informed me of Hux’s treachery,” said Phasma. “Forgive me.  I have not been gifted with the guidance of the Force, and was blinded by his lies.  Please allow me to be your ally in my new role.”

Ben lowered his weapon slowly, and flicked it off.

“General Phasma… the oxygen scrubbers have been sabotaged beyond repair, and will fail.  I anticipate an attack by the Resistance starting in the hour.”  He said each sentence as if one had anything to do with the other.

“I will mobilize our strongest defense at once and start the evacuation,” she said.

“Wait.  I sense someone of great import will be accompanying them.  Skywalker.”

“Luke  _Skywalker_?”

Even in his drugged state, Ben could feel his own flesh and blood approaching Vjun.  Ben pulled as best he could on the power of the Force as he chose his words carefully.

“We would be honored to make the child of Darth Vader a guest in Vader’s house, and to lay a Master of the Force to rest here.  Please do not impede his meeting with the Supreme Leader.  It can only end in glory,” he said.

Phasma deferred to his spiritual guidance.  “Understood.”

He bowed to her as he took his leave, then hurried to the infirmary to see if he could find an antidote for the sedative, some stitches for his cheek, and a razor for his beard.

Rey was coming, and he would be at his best when she arrived.


	11. Part 11

When the _Horn_ arrived, Leia asked for volunteers— a skeleton crew of five, one officer and four enlisted crew, and nine more to fly the X-wings.  She gave priority to people who had lost family in the attack on the Hosnian system.  She had to turn away a dozen pilots.  Poe had to convince BB-8 to stay.  Poe would not be on a fighter, and worried BB-8 would be damaged by the atmosphere.  Besides which, he was not going to be in a fighter.

R2-D2 could not be dissuaded, and boarded the _Horn_ after Leia and Luke.  Around twenty droids rounded out the _Horn’s_ crew compliment.  C-3PO stayed at the base.

Poe boarded the _Horn_ and immediately took charge.  He directed the loading of X-wings into the bays until Leia ordered him to take a rest before he left.

“I’ll rest when you do,” he said.  She gave him a wry smile and let him continue before spotting something she wanted to attend to herself.

The _Millennium Falcon_ came last.  Chewbacca landed her in bay 9 of the _Horn_ as Rey watched.  It took up the entire hangar.   Rey could see directly across to the opposite bay, where pilots, small as insects, were busily completing their cross-check and minor repairs.  They would get inside the ships before the jump, and then once the ship hit the shield, would be pushed out, one after another in rapid succession, with a mechanical sling-shot like device.

Poe and Leia approached behind her.  Leia was carrying two metal cases, and handed one to Poe.  Both Rey and Poe were in a head-to-neck black chemical resistant suit, similar to the ones Storm Tropers wore as their bottom layer.

“Those are some good men and women,” said Poe, motioning at the pilots across the way.

Rey swallowed.  “Is it worth it?”

“To end the war?  Yeah,” said Poe.

“For Ben,” said Rey.

“That’s not a decision I can make on their behalf,” said Poe.

“Or me,” said Leia.  “Unfortunately, I’ve done it anyway.”.

“If I may ask, General, you ever get comfortable with that?” said Poe.

“I try not to.”  she pursed her lips.  “I am the oldest soldier I know, now.  Must not be difficult enough.  Anyway.  Young lady.  Poe.  I’m here to see you off.”  She waved Chewbacca off the ship.  He stepped down, reluctantly.  She fished in her pocket with her free hand and handed him a small information stick, which he took.

“Just in case” she said.  Chewie clapped her, then Rey, on the back.  He growled a few words Rey didn’t understand.

“They’re already in their fighter.  Bay six,” said Leia, referring to Finn and Luke.  Luke would be piloting a TIE-fighter re-constructed from the wrecked ships from the battle of Maz’s Cantina and landing it on the front landing pad.  Finn would emerge wearing recovered Storm Trooper armor to clear a path in front of Luke.   They would work their way down.

Poe and Rey would find the lower entrance and work their way up.

Chewy nodded at Poe, who nodded back, then strode off in the direction of bay six.

Poe stood at attention and saluted.  Rey merely inclined her head.

“May the Force be with both of you.  Always.”

“And you,” said Rey.

“Madam,” said Poe.

Poe turned away and headed up the plank, hoping she wouldn’t see his face.  Rey trotted past him and up into the ship, also fighting tears.  He took a breath before turning to press the button to pull up the gang plank.

Droids pushed supplies around the bay.  Chewy, visible through the glass at the back of the bay, jogged in the hall that linked the bays together and out of sight.  Leia was already gone.

He closed the doors, and took a breath, before walking into the cockpit.  Rey was in the pilot seat.  He raised his eyebrows.

“It’s very finicky.  Lots of modifications,” said Rey.  “You could do the jump in one of the bunks, if you don’t want to co-pilot.  They have belts.”

“Fair enough.”  He took the co-pilot chair, and put the metal case between his feet.  He drummed his fingers on the console, and they sat in silence for a tense half-hour.

“You play cards?” he said.

“No.  Why, do you have a pack?”

“No.  Just making conversation.  I think you’d be good at cards.  We play a lot of cards around here.  Gets a little boring without something to do in our leisure time.”

“Are you saying you don’t trust me?”

“Hah.  Well, see, now I’m not as sure.”

“About trusting me?”

“No, about the cards.  We should play a round if we come back.”

“When we come back, teach me.”

He gave her a thin smile, then glanced at the clock.

“We’re two minutes out.  Buckle in.”

She did so and switched on the engines to the lowest power.  They wouldn’t be launched out like the others; they’d have to drop out first, on their own power, and hope that they’d get to the surface before the other side’s TIE fighters had time to mobilize.

They felt the subtle, insistent push into their seats of the beginning of a jump, and then the firmer jolt of the jump itself.

“Tense your legs up,” he said.

“Hm?”  she complied, and suddenly there was a terrible, sickening cracking noise as Rey’s vision started to white out.  In the center of the ring, the surface of the shield boiled and crackled and bubbled outward into the ring.  They heard the disruptors at the bottom of the bay begin to discharge, and Rey punched a button to bring down a blast shield before the light became blinding.  Through a crack in the bottom, she watched for the light to dim.  Poe saw it first.

“NOW,” he said, and she pulled back on the stick and dropped, blind, into the center of the _Horn’s_ ring.   He flicked up the switch for the blast shield and read the console as she dropped them into the atmosphere.

“OK, other fighters are dropping now,” he said.  He turned on the sensor.  Liquid began to pour down the shield like a sheet as they entered the atmosphere.  Bast Fortress, at first a tiny, shiny speck on a range of greenish-black mountains, towered above their tallest peaks.  They dropped to a very low altitude and watched as a few specks— TIE fighters, started to take off from high up and fade into the atmosphere.  They saw bright sparks as they began to engage with the resistance X-wings, but couldn’t see the outcome of the dogfight.

Poe exhaled and thought a prayer for his comrades.  They’d made it below their radar before the First Order had mobilized.  Bast Fortress started to loom large in their view screen.

“Where is the entrance?” said Rey.

“I’m looking for it.”

“Wait, the recon mission didn’t find it?”

“The recon guys didn’t come back dead, so no.  It’s a fortress full of humans on an ammonia-atmosphere planet.  We’ll know the entrances by whatever’s leaking nitrogen.”

He frowned.

“What?”

“I have three leaks, not two.  And one of them, well… it’s leaking kind of a lot.  It’s right near the bottom of the mountain range.”

“That’s where we’re going.  Coordinates?”

He hit a button.  “On your readout now.”

She glided down onto the flattest surface she could find near the leak, landed, and unbuckled.   Poe pulled the metal case onto his lap and opened it.  Inside there were two ventilators.  They were clear and covered their entire face.  He took a stick of something greasy and rubbed it on his neck and forehead, then threw it to Rey.  He made sure to have her attention, and then pulled the mask over his face.  They then put their flight helmets on over that.

Inside of the case was a third mask.  Rey put it in her lap.

“Check the seal,” he said, running his finger along the edge of the mask.  “It’s not the end of the world if it gets on your skin, but it’ll sting pretty good and can do some damage if we can’t rinse it.”  He handed her a basic, salty spray, and she stowed it in her belt. “What you really don’t want is to get any of it in your eyes, or to breathe it.  That can do a little more than sting.  We’ve got about an hour before the seal starts to corrode in the acid, so if twenty minutes goes by and we don’t find an entrance, we need to come back to the ship and re-think.  We’ve got a few hours if we can get out of the rain.”

She copied him, then threw the stick back.  He looked over her face and neck and touched up any exposed skin that didn’t look shiny, and she did the same for him.  Her mask fogged a little, and he helped her attach a small oxygen tank and calibrate the flow to minimize the fogging.

“Good?”

“Good.”

“Right, let’s head out,” he said.

They headed toward the back of the ship, Rey carrying the additional mask with her under her arm. Poe lowered the gang-plank, and they both took a few shallow breaths in case they’d put their masks on incorrectly.  Luckily, all was well.   Poe crept down into the dark, and looked behind him.  Rey hung back for a moment.

“You ready?”

Rey’s eyes moved back and forth for a moment.  “Yeah,”  she muttered.  She walked down, and Poe raised the walkway behind her.

They crept, hands on their weapons, in the direction of the reading, the dim light and rain only revealing a few arms-lengths in front of them.  The air slowly began to clear as they approached their target: two large, round, holes, at least three men tall each, drilled at an angle into the mountain’s steep base.  There was a metal hood above them to prevent liquid from getting in.  They stopped.  Rey pulled herself up to look down into it.  Poe tapped her on the back, and she looked back at him.

“This looks like the emergency pressure vent for the oxygen reclamation.” he said.

“Why’s it leaking?”

“I’d guess it’s broken.  I don’t hear anything.  Oxygen reclamation facility fans are pretty loud.”

“Let’s go.”

“Whoah, whoah, hold up—“  but she’d already swung her legs up and over the ledge, and was gone, sliding into the abyss.  He threw his hands up.

“Next time I go with Finn,” he muttered, and pulled himself up after her.  He pulled his arms up around his neck, his knees to his chest, and cushioned his head between his elbows as he swung wildly down the smooth rock tunnel and rolled out, surprisingly quickly.   He landed on his side and rolled, heavily, onto his back.  Rey was already standing and adjusting her mask.

“I think we need to work on our communication,” he whispered.

They were in a large room, behind a mess of melted pipes and equipment.  He looked up.  They’d fallen through the mangled blades of a massive fan.  She pointed through the mess, at what he assumed was the room’s exit.

“He’s that way.”

“You got one of those Force feelings?”

“Maybe,” she looked around. “Nothing gets this broken without Ben.  He’s close.”

He considered it.  “That’s fair.”  He stood up, heavily.  “Give me some warning before the next stunt, I’m in good shape but not, like, twenty.”

They crept to the door.  Rey closed her eyes for a moment, then pointed to a spot on the door and motioned to Poe’s blaster with her eyes.  Poe frowned.

“Shoot,” she mouthed.

Poe pulled his weapon and then shot through the door.  They heard a yelp and a heavy thud.

“That all?” he whispered.

“For now.”

“That Force stuff is handy.”

She opened the door and he covered her.  On the opposite end of the long hall was a staircase, and between them and the staircase, a single door.   Rey’s eyebrows raised, and she started jogging toward it.

“Keep to the wall!  Back to the wall!” Poe hissed after her.  She got to the door, which was sealed and locked.  She turned on the red lightsaber and plunged it into the locking mechanism, and threw it open with a thud just as Poe reached her.

She walked quietly.  The room was illuminated only by the light streaming in from the hall and the glow of her saber.  On the ground, toward the back, was a black figure, bare face turned away from the door.  He was under a set of high-off-the ground manacles, currently unoccupied.  Next to his head, the mask of Kylo Ren was on the ground, faced toward the door.

“Ben?”  she whispered.

He stirred, and breathed deeply once.  His hand slapped onto the top of his helmet, and he assisted himself up.

“Close the door” he said.  He glanced over at Poe.  Poe hesitated, then complied, and they were illuminated only by the light from the damaged door and the lightsaber.

Rey held it up to look at Ben, and they stared at one another.  He ran his hand over his face.  

“I liked the beard,” he said.

She had not been looking at the cleaner edges of his whiskers, but at the almost black bruising on his face and the new, clean line of stitches.

“We’re here to rescue you,” said Poe.

Ben didn’t look away from Rey.  “My hero,” he said, with what Poe thought was mock-sincerity.

Rey flicked the lightsaber off, dropped it and the extra mask to the ground, and threw herself on him, chest first, arms tight around his back.

“I thought I’d lost you,” she said.  She rocked them back and forth, him half-sat up, her knelt beside him.  She pressed  the side of her face against his.  He hissed.

“Careful.  My cheek.  You’d feel if I were dead.”

“That’s not the worst that could happen.”

She pulled her mask off and grabbed his hand.  She and kissed his knuckles, mouth, and forehead in overwhelmed exuberance.  He made a face and pulled away to look at her, then he pressed his hand into her upper back to pull her back into a full-mouthed kiss.  His other hand snaked under her backside, and he and pulled her onto his lap.

She pulled back and said, lips brushing his, “I’m not hurting you, am I?”

“There’s nobody else I’d hurt for.”

Poe coughed.

“Not to rush you guys, but there’s a corpse by the door, here.”

Ben pulled away.  “He’s comfortable, I’m sure.” Rey looked over.

“Well, I’m not.  Who is that?”

“Mister Hux.  He’s been demoted.”

“He’s mangled.”

“The Order takes its demotions seriously.”

“Why are you in here if you got out?" asked Poe.  "Hux didn’t kill himself.  The air filter didn’t break itself.  You didn’t get stitches as their prisoner.”

“I was tortured, and didn’t yield, if that’s what you’re implying.  It’s been an interesting couple of days.  I decided I could use a rest.”

“Who here _hasn’t_ had a day like that?” snapped Poe.

Ben ignored him.  “Anyway.  This place is conspicuous and air-tight.  Seemed like the best spot to wait.”

Poe’s eyes had almost adjusted.  Rey was still straddling Ben.  “Could you just get offa him, please?”

 She slid off and leaned back against Ben.  He set his chin on her shoulder and dangled one arm over the front of her.  Ben smirked at Poe’s discomfort.

“So you can sleep after that?”

“You won’t be sleeping after you killed the guard in front of the oxygen reclamation center?”

“No, as a matter of fact.”

Ben rolled his eyes.  “Where is Skywalker?”

“Who said Luke was here?” said Poe.

“I can feel him.”

Rey leaned forward and looked back at him.  “Don’t worry about it.” 

 She grabbed his hand, kissed his palm, and shrugged his arm off of her while she stood.  She picked up her own mask, pulled it onto her forehead, and reached over to the extra one she’d brought.  She scooped it up and held it out to him.

“I have one,” he said, and waved toward his own helmet, “I’ll take you to the throne room.”

“Hold up, sunshine,” said Poe.  He pulled his blaster.  He didn’t point it because Rey was in his way.

“We, uh… I’ll go.  I think you should stay here.  Poe’ll stay with you,” said Rey.

Ben laughed.  “I’m not very injured.  I can take care of myself.”

“That’s what we’re worried about,” said Poe.

“I’m going to take care of Snoke,” said Rey.  “I think it’s better if we’re not together when it happens.”

Ben opened his mouth to say something about futility, but Rey interrupted him.

“I know.  I know.  Just, trust us.”

Ben’s eyes flicked over to Poe, then back at her.

“Trust me,” she said.  Both men rolled their eyes.

“Come here, then,” said Ben.  He pulled her close and rested his chin on her head.

“I’ll stay.  I won’t forgive you if you fail.”

“I won’t.”

He kissed her temple.  She lifted her face to his, stood on her tiptoes, and pecked him on the mouth before pulling her mask back down over her face.

They held onto each other as long as they could as they parted.  They held each other at arm’s length, palm to palm, before she finally slid away.  Poe squinted at her as she opened the door and started running down the hall.  Both men winced.

“She needs to keep her back to the wall,” said Ben.

“I been telling her,” said Poe.

Poe slid the door closed.  His eyes took a minute to adjust to the dark.  By the time it had, Ben was bending to lift his mask off the ground.  He held it up to Poe.

“You don’t mind, do you?  It smells like piss in here.”

Poe shook his head, “I think I like it better than your face.”

Ben chuffed.  “Remind you of anyone?”

Poe nodded.  “Only met him once or twice.  You look like both of them, though.  Seems a little unearned.”

“I bet she likes you.  You’re more like she wanted.  That stable, square-jawed type she likes.”

Poe didn’t say anything.  Ben put the mask on and approached Poe, slowly.

“I bet she’s like the mom you never had.”

“I have a mom.”

“That makes one of us.  Mine was off saving the galaxy.  Han Solo didn’t have that excuse.”

“I don’t need _your_ excuse, man.”

“What do you need?”

“From _you_?  Nothing.”

“Then why are you here?”

“There are a couple people who I respect who tell me you never had a shot at being worth a damn.  I figure everyone deserves one.”

“What happens when I get my ‘shot,’ if I fail to measure up, in your estimation?”

Poe smiled,  “I don’t mean to be a jerk about it, but I’ll probably kill ya.”

“That’s very fair of you.”

“I like to think of myself as a fair man.  Besides, you’re expecting.  New beginnings, all that.”

“What.”  It wasn’t a question.

“She’s, uh, expecting?”

Ben did not respond.

“Pregnant?” said Poe.

“I didn’t… no.  She’s not.”

Poe grinned at knowing something he didn’t.  “Luke and Leia seemed pretty firm about it.  Like, something about it being how things go?  Would they know better than you?”

Ben threw his head back and breathed.

“… It’s the near future.  Not now.”

“Or maybe she hid it from you?”

Ben clenched his fist, and suddenly, Poe found it very hard to breathe.  He clawed at the invisible hand around his neck.

“I’m not going to let you wonder if you’re dying.  That would be cruel.  You are,” said Ben.  Poe’s tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth, and he sunk to his knees.  Ben, inside of his mask, made a face as if he’d tasted something bitter.

“But… “ said Ben, “I owe you a favor.  I feel you were kind to mother while I was away.  Remember I don’t owe you _two_ favors.”

Poe dropped to the ground, unconscious.  Ben rolled Poe on his side and checked the seal on Poe’s mask before dragging him to the corner next to Hux, where a passing Storm Trooper would assume he was also dead, then threw the door open and ran after Rey.


	12. Part 12

Luke dropped the TIE fighter through the ring right after the Falcon and dove at the steepest angle he felt he could sustain without risking blackout.

“All right back there?”

“Yeah.”

The X-wings followed at a short distance, then allowed Luke and Finn to break away.  Finn watched the clock.  As it dropped, he read aloud.

“Three… Two…  One.”

And the X-wings behind them started firing.  One bolt streaked close enough to put spots in Finn’s vision.

“HOLY—”

“Return fire!” shouted Luke.

Finn gripped the trigger and pulled as he winced.  The shots whizzed past the pursuing TIE fighters at a wild angle.

“Can you do better than that?”

“How good do you want me to be right now!?”

Luke sighed and dropped them downward in an arc to circle around on one of the lagging X-Wings.  The cornering on the TIE fighter was better; he was soon below one of them.  The pilot in the craft spotted them, and immediately hit her eject button just as Finn fired.  The ejection pod shot straight up out of the atmosphere in the wake of the explosion.

“IS SHE CLEAR!?”

“Yeah.  Here they come.”

Finn glanced downward at a v-shaped formation of TIE fighters.  The radio buzzed.  Luke fell into formation with them.

“State your designation,” said a stern, male voice.  Finn fumbled for the button.

“This is TIE fighter Rho, Gamma Lambada-1138, and Delta Alpha-4205 pilot and gunner, do you copy?”

There was a pause.

“We copy.  I have you both as deceased at Takodana, over.”

“Wrecked, used the opportunity to gather intel.  Important information on the Resistance.  Ship damaged.  Will debrief after we engage the enemy.”

“Negative, land and debrief.  We will cover you, over.”

“Roger.  Out.”

Luke put ship on auto-pilot as he put a ventilator on.  Finn had a Stormtrooper helmet, already on, with an oxygen tank equipped on his side.  Two TIE-fighters broke off and covered them as they approached for landing, and broke away to engage the remaining X-wings.

The landing pad was mostly empty.  It was open, flat, and octagonal, juding from the side of the mountain.  On the side, carved into the mountain rock as if emerging from it, was a many stories tall effigy of Darth Vader, in full helmet, one hand reaching for his saber on his belt, the other clawing at the sky.  The entrance to the castle was on either side of the statue.

“He wasn’t a shy boy, was he?”

“No,” said Luke.  “I don’t think he had it built, though.  It looks newer.”

They touched down, and saw a handful of Stormtroopers jogging in their direction.

“Any advice?”  said Finn.

“Be really scared if anyone says anything to you that makes your life make perfect sense.”

“What?”  Finn laughed, more stressed than mirthful, “I-I don’t think that will ever happen.”

“Remember what to do?”

“Yeah.”

He closed his eyes, breathed, and remembered how it felt watching Luke and Rey, at the bonfire, as they just… disappeared.

And he just disappeared.

Luke pressed the button to open the hatch,  Finn undid the protective restraints and lept out of the X-Wing, hand on his blaster.   The Stormtroopers who were approaching slowed down.  They stopped short and started looking to the side, as if listening to and speaking on their internal radio.  Finn did not have the frequency.

They didn’t see them.  Finn looked around as he jogged toward the entrance, and realized he couldn’t see Luke.  He stood against the base of the statue at the entrance of the fortress and whispered “Luke?”

Across from him, at the opposite side of the threshold, he saw the slightest flicker, as Luke faded into, then back out of vision.  Finn, still invisible, crossed the gap and leaned against the massive door frame next to where he’d seen Luke.

“How fast can you go?”

“For you, slow a jog,” Finn heard.  “Just remember, we’re invisible, not silent.”

“Right.  How do we stick together?”

“We’re going to have to go slow and make a little noise.  If I can feel or see you, Snoke can.”

“Ugh.”

“Right turns only.  We come to a fork, unless it’s into certain death, we turn right.   We don’t need to go into rooms.  If there’s a staircase, we go down.  We have to search every floor for the throne room.  Knock on the wall whenever there’s cover.  I’ll knock twice back.”

“OK.  Got it.”

Finn knocked, Luke knocked back twice, and they jogged into the great entrance hall of Bast Fortress.

—

Kylo Ren sprinted up the steps of the fortress.  He reached out with his mind as far as he could, touched Rey’s and felt her recede.  He felt his already racing pulse skip.

She was hiding something.

“ _Rey,_ ” he shouted.  He was closing on her.   He spotted the bottom of her shoe at the top of the next tier, and then it vanished.

A trick he’d first seen when she’d done it as a child, the first time he’d met her.  It was the one trick he’d learned from her.

At the top of the staircase, the castle opened up into the main great, many tired hall.  The center of the call was a vast pit, and the next staircase up, leading to the Throne Room, was at the opposite side, around the great circular hall that clung to the edge of the hollowed out mountain.  He looked to either side and squinted.

She could have gone either way.  He bent over double, breathing heavy.

“REY.”  he bellowed.  It echoed.  Out of the corner of his eye, behind him on the stairs, he thought he saw a flicker.  He turned his head.  It was there.  The air blinked and shuddered, first there, then two or three feet to one side, then back.  He heard her gasp, then she suddenly, blinked back into vision, saber hilt drawn.  She slowly backed away from him

“You promised to stay put,” she said.

“You lied to me.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You hid it from me.”

Ben put his hand on his belt, but did not draw his saber.  Rey slid one foot back behind her, then pulled the other back to it, inching backwards around the great hall.

“I’m not hiding anything about myself.”

“I can feel you hiding it.”

“That’s not what I’m hiding.  Trust me.”

“You don’t trust me.”

“I wonder _why_!?  Where is Poe?”

Ben didn’t answer.  Rey slid her foot backwards.

“Your weight is on your heels,” he said.  “Your form is terrible.  Put your weight on the balls of your feet, and ground yourself from your calves into your stomach. Like so.”

“Don’t do this.”

Ben flicked on his saber, and it shone off the slick obsidian walls at their edge of the great hall in a spectral, hellish light.

“We’ve never really sparred when I was at full strength, have we?”

“You’ll win, Ben.”

“Will I?”

He swung, and in one motion she lifted her saber and unfurled it, turning away the blow.

“I know what you’re doing.”

“You think so?”  he swung his sword around.  “One of the things about our animal brains, we have a very limited ability to focus on more than one thing.  Physically not possible, in fact.  You can watch my sword or my feet.  Which is more important?”

Rey chose wrong, and he gouged her in her off-arm, just above the elbow.  She shrieked in betrayal and searing pain.

“Unacceptable,” he said.

“I’m not going to kill you, Ben.”  She clutched her arm at her side.  It hurt too much to let hang.

“You have the Force.  You don’t _need_ to look at both my feet and my sword.   _Again_.”

He swung the sword around him, then lunged, and watched him through the Force, as if floating beside them— his back foot slid forward as he started the flourish to meet his front foot, and he launched from there forward.  She turned the blade aside and struck back, coming dangerously close to his wrist.  He recovered.  He started circling to the side of her, his back dangerously close to the ledge.

“ _Ben_.”

She looked to her side, first up at the higher levels, and then at the staircase to the throne room.  Ben didn’t follow her gaze.

“That’s not where we’re going,” said Ben.  “Not yet.  One of us has to die first to have the power to defeat him.”

“No.”

“We know why it needs to be me.”

She paused as if counting to herself and gripped her saber.

“ _No_ ,” she said.

She bore her teeth at him and threw her saber as hard as she could toward the staircase, a quarter of the circle around where they were, then pushed it with her mind, then faded back out of his vision just as he began another swing.  It landed near the stairs, and she sprinted after it, fading in and out of visibility.  He flicked off his saber to run after her.

—

Finn and Luke jogged along a high tier of the many-tiered great hall.  They had dodged a handful of Stormtroopers, but they had been preparing an evacuation.  The air was still technically breathable, but only just, and Finn was glad to have the mask on even if it was a terrible feeling to be back in one.

Finn stopped to knock.  After a minute, he heard the two knocks he was waiting for and continued.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a sudden red flash.  He stopped to look and below him were two figures in black, illuminated by the grimy natural light streaming in through the domed ceiling and the distinctly unnatural light of Kylo Ren’s fiery saber-light running its tongue along the walls.

“Oh.  Oh, shit.”

He watched, helpless, as he saw Han’s death over a bottomless chasm superimposed over Rey turning her lightsaber on at the edge of yet another chasm.  He backed away from the edge.

“No, no, no.”  He knocked on the wall, in vain, for Luke.  No reply.

“Luke?”  he ventured, slightly louder.  He felt something strange, like a prickle, on the side of his face, and he turned to see Luke flicker into view, for just a moment.  He looked down, and Rey was looking up.  She’d seen it.  Kylo Ren had not looked.  Luke was standing, defiant, at the point where the staircase to the throne room cut into the tier they were on.   Finn saw Rey turn her head toward the staircase and hurl her lightsaber, and then blink out of view.

“Oh, shit.” said Finn, and started sprinted just as Kylo Ren took off after Rey.  He was closer to the staircase and ran up it into a tunnel.  He reached it in just enough time to rap once on the wall to the side.  He listened for the reply.

Tap.

Tap.

 _Tap_.

 _Three_.

And then something blinked into view, for the briefest moment, and he suddenly understood what he was there for.

“ _You have to hide,_ ” he hissed.  He focused as much concentration as he could into concealing both of them and continued running up the stairs.

Rey was just behind them, with Ben on her heels.  Finn ran, but Ben was not focused on anything but Rey.  He he knew Finn was there, he didn’t let on.  

Rey pulled her saber to her as she passed it, then turned to face Ben a few steps further up the staircase.  


“I have the higher ground,” Rey said.

“I have a longer reach.”  Ben reached out his hand and she felt something around her ankle.

“NO,” but it was pulled out underneath her.  She landed on her tailbone, hard, ten steps above him.  He closed; five steps above him, now.  She pushed herself up onto her bad arm and cried out on pain.

He swung down, parried, and she retorted with a slash across his chest as he stepped back.  A shallow, but palpable, hit.  He gave a shuddering grunt through his gritted teeth.  She stared at his mask, at what she believed were his eyes, and pulled off her mask.

“ _NO,_ ” he said, but she brought her saber down onto the face plate, and it shattered.  She stared straight at him, her eyes already beginning, to water, then turned and ran up the steps.

“REY,” she shouted.

He stopped for just a moment to see if there was anything salvageable, then started after her.  He heard her gasp, then cough.

“I can’t win like this.   _Stop_ ,” she said.  She’d slowed to a walk and he caught up with her.  She was bent over double, coughing.

He switched off and stowed his lightsaber

“Take mine!” he started to reach around his mask to unhook it.

“ _Fuck you_.”

She fell forward, on her stomach, heavily, gasping, coughing thick, salty fluid.  She flicked off her lightsaber and rolled over, holding it under her chin, daring him to try to put the mask on her before she could switch the blade on again.

“Why can’t you let me make you do anything?” he rasped at her.

Ben pulled a glove off, and his skin began to sting.  The skin on her cheeks was red.  In a few minutes, it would blister.  He put his hand on the bare skin at the back of her hairline, greased with a barrier, and cleared his mind.

Her breathing started to improve.  He lifted her, his bare hand still on her bare skin.  She gasped as he poured healing energy into her.  Her reddened eyes cleared as he mended them and her weeping lungs continuously.  With she alternated between bliss and agony with every exhale and inhale of her breath.

“Your hand,” she said.   He kept his face as still as possible, but the air was starting to burn him in ernest.

“I can always get a new one,” he said.

She gazed up at the throne room.

“They’re waiting,” she said.

Ben looked up the stairs.  “We’ll go.  Just… let me look at you.  Just a moment.”

Rey nodded.  She looked at his mask, and teared up at not being able to see his face.  “I… I do love you,” she said.  “I don’t know if I ever meant to say it, but....”

He grimaced under his mask.  He nodded, hurriedly.

“I-I know.  I know.  It’s OK.  I know.  We need to leave.  We’ll buy some time.  A little more time.  Just a little longer.”

She shook her head and looked up the stairs.  “No.”

He looked up the staircase, toward their fate.

—

Finn arrived at an open space.  It had gotten darker as he climbed.  He knew by the way the air felt:  still, stagnant.  There was something very faint, like a light, towards the top.   He perceived, but did not see, an extension of a staircase, a tall pyramid, and at the top of it a throne.

Finn thought about his priority, and without hesitation, dropped his own cover to focus entirely on giving it to his team member.

“You’re late, boy.”

The voice echoed.

“I— I didn’t make an appointment,”  Finn ventured.  “My name is Finn.  I’m not your ‘boy.’”

“Nevertheless, Finn.  You run like an old man.  Or maybe like you’re with one.”

Luke revealed himself.  He was halfway up the steps.

“Hello, old friend,” said Snoke.

“I trusted you,” said Luke.

“An error on your part.”

“You took _our children_.  Ben was our child, my family’s.  Our baby.  You took all of the galaxy’s children from them, and then you took _ours_.”  


“If he was so precious, why didn’t you protect him?”  


Luke slowly reached for his weapon.  Snoke waved his hand, and Luke’s legs fell out from under him.

“Your species gets feeble so quickly.  You don’t live long enough to really know yourself,”  he said.  He turned his attention to Finn, “Do you agree?”

“I-I don’t have anything to say about that.”

“Don’t listen t—“ started Luke, but Snoke waived his hand again and Luke fell down the stairs, as if punched in the face, hard.  Finn watched as Luke’s eyes went glassy, and his face relaxed almost as if he were sleeping.  Something he didn’t know was there, something warm in Luke’s direction, faded.

“No, you don’t know,” said Snoke.  “You wouldn’t, would you?”

Finn turned his head to the side, and looked out the corner of his eye.  He put his hand on his blaster on his hip.

“You’re trying to hide something from me.  But even the girl found you obvious, right?  A secondary character in your own life.  She just took it for granted you’d die for her.  After just a few hours of being in your company, she just took your life for granted.  Just like that.  Is that who you are?”

Finn pulled his blaster and pointed it up the pyramid, sifting from foot to foot.

“I know exactly who I am,” said Finn.

“When I took you from your planet, from your cradle, over your parent’s corpses, I decided who you are.  I will never give the self you were supposed to be back to you.   I promise you I could.   You will always go through your life begging everyone else to give it back to you.  You decided to die for the first person who told you something about yourself you felt proud of, and she couldn’t even bring herself to say you were important.  Not even when she asked you to die, right?”

Finn pulled the trigger, flinching at the recoil— but the bolt hung, an arm’s length from the now-illuminated face of Snoke.  He was tiny, barely larger than a child, with a question, mark indentation in his skull and a crater where a piece of his mandible and jaw had been torn out.

“I will not give you back yourself.  I could show you how to seize it back from me, as my Apprentice.”

Finn grit his teeth.  Behind him, he heard the echo of a single pair of heavy footsteps climbing.  It was Kylo Ren’s.

And not Rey’s.  He turned his head and saw a shadowy figure carrying a limp body.  He stared, wide-eyed.  She didn’t have a mask on.  Finn was just a few moments from cornered.

He smiled under his mask, pointed his blaster down the staircase, and looked up at Snoke.

“Fuck you,” he said, and fired.


	13. Part 13

Ben felt Finn take a shot and caught the bolt in the air.  The bolt hung and crackled— behind them.  A second later, he felt it, and looked down.  Rey began to scream.  He let the bolt go, and it smashed into the slanted ceiling of the staircase behind him.  


He staggered two more steps, to the landing of the throne room, and fell on his knees, dropping Rey.  He breathed out, then in— and felt his right lung collapse.  He pressed his hand against the wound.  Little blood, the bolt had cauterized it.  Clean shot through.  He concentrated past the searing pain into the electrical impulses in his own spine to try and keep his body from going into shock.

Finn stared.  His hands shook so hard the blaster rattled.

The bolt passed through Rey’s left thigh and right knee.  Her wailing began to quiet as she started to cough uncontrollably.  She passed out.

Snoke, in his throne, laughed.  Ben remembered himself and, in his pain, reached forward for Rey.

“ _Don’t_ ,” said Finn.

Ben clutched his wound and tried to speak.  His voice came out as a strange, hissing whistle, incomprehensible.  He gripped the side of his helmet and pulled it off.

“ _Help me_ ,” he mouthed.  His eyes stung.  He blinked away tears.  Finn startled as something flew off of Ben’s belt and to the side of the room.  He tried to fire, but found his finger stuck in place.  He looked over, and it was Ben’s lightsaber hilt.

He was unarmed.  He felt himself able to move again.

Rey began to choke.

Finn gaped.  Ben held up his hands.  One was bare and badly blistered.  With it, he slowly bent and slid slid it under Rey’s neck and turned her on her side.  She gasped, then took one, almost normal breath.

“ _Help_.”

Finn dropped his blaster and ran to them.

“What-do-I-do, whatdoIdo?”

Ben mouthed something like “ _glove off_.”  Finn hesitated, but complied, and hissed at the fiery ammonia on his skin.  He put his hand on the other side of Rey’s neck.  Ben moved Finn’s hand over his own hand.

Finn gasped as he felt his own stinging hand tingle, then go past healing into a warm, pleasurable comfort.

It was a sweet excitement, free of fear, or judgement.  It was home. It was like being in love.

Ben punched Finn’s helmet, just hard enough to get his focus back.  

“I can’t,” said Finn.

Ben’s face screwed up with frustration and grief.

“I will die.  She will _die,_ ” he mouthed.

“I’m… I’m _occupied_.”

Ben coughed.  His eyes watered.  He closed them, and through the Force, looked around the room.

Snoke, on his throne, a great black mass, laughing, illuminated by the hanging bolt a few inches from his face.

Finn, his hand clenched at his side, radiating the dissonant energy he’d felt from Rey— close to right, but not quite.  Close to the tune, but not the tune.  Something hidden.

The figure of Luke, or once-Luke, curled up at the base of the stairs.  He felt no life from him.  His body was twisted at an odd angle, from his lower back down.  The muscles in his face were lax.  His light had gone out.

Luke’s fist, the one with flesh still on it, was clenched.  Ben looked deeper, subtler, quieter.  He felt a warm breath on his face.

Ben’s eyes, cloudy and nearly blind, shot open and focused on the bone-white figure of Finn in front of him.  He grabbed Finn’s gloved hand in his and brought his face as close as possible.

“ _How do I help?”_

“No.  If I’m wrong about you, she might die.”

“ _Trust me_.”

Finn turned his head toward the throne and Ben followed his gaze.  For the briefest moment, through the Force, he saw something, a flicker, something to the right of Snoke and down five steps, obscured to Snoke by the bright light of the bolt hovering a hand’s-length away from Snoke’s eyes.

Ben jerked his hand away from Rey’s neck, his hand hidden by her body, and clenched it into a fist.  The skin cracked and split, and he held on, through the pain.

They held their breath.  Finn shivered as he felt Snoke’s probing of them.  It was  like a dry tongue lapping over their minds.

“You’re running out of moves,” said Snoke.  “I had hoped you would at least try to kill me.  You have been a disappointment, _Ben_.  It does not matter.  I will take that boy,” he pointed a bony finger at Finn, “and he won’t last long.  He’ll turn or die suffering.  If that doesn’t work, I feel the girl now or soon carries Skywalker blood.  There are many more moves for me.”

— And behind him, the air lensed and bubbled as the figure behind him put all of her concentration into grabbing the back of his thin skull and shoving it, as hard as she could, into the hanging blaster bolt.  Snoke discharged a crackling dark lighting, for a fraction of a second, and Leia bellowed in pain and outrage and kicked him down the stairs.  The bolt flew forward and sparked into the opposite wall.  Snoke bounced with a satisfying snap as his ribcage shattered, and she ran after him, pulling the blaster from her hip and putting another bolt into his head.  She kicked him again for good measure.

“Child-stealing _bastard_ ,” she bellowed.  


Ben and Finn unclenched their fists and fell on Rey.  Ben placed his cracked and bleeding hand on her neck, and Finn placed his over Ben’s.  They all shuddered as they felt their wounds knit.

Ben heard something clatter next to him and opened his eyes.

A clear mask.  Leia had tossed it and was jogging over toward Luke.  She still had hers on.

“Put your mask on, then put hers on.  We’re leaving.”

Ben scrabbled for his helmet.  His bare left hand had healed, but the burns had made their way muscle deep and were damaged beyond repair.  It was a stiff, scar-covered mass.  He affixed the helmet.  He felt Luke’s dim, subtle, hidden life-Force brighten as it came out of hiding.

“Where did you get that?” said Ben.

“I saw you refuse it when you were talking trash in the basement, I figured it’d come in handy.  I could use some help,” said Leia.

“Let me die here,” said Luke.  From the angle of his lower back, his spine had been severed.

“You don’t have a fatal injury.”

“It’s fate.”

“ _Fuck_ fate.  You’re just going to have to live.”  She looked from her brother to her son and pointed at him. “You too, you son of a bitch.  Help your uncle, we’ll fight later.”

“I… I don’t want to fi—“

“ _Too bad._  Help me.”

Ben found bare skin on Luke and attempted to heal him.  Luke shook his head.

“It’s limited by what the body itself can heal.  I’d need implants.”

Leia nodded at Ben, who lifted Luke and walked toward the exit.  Finn lifted Rey, and they started toward the stairs.

Luke grimaced.  “I… I don’t want implants.”

“Your _hand_ is one,” said Leia.

“It’s a prosthetic.  This is different.”

“We are not our father.  We’ll talk about this later.  I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to.”

“Except live.”

“ _Damn_ right.”

“He should be allowed to follow the calling of the Force,” said Ben.

Leia stood on her tiptoes, as close as she could to her son’s helmet.  Her breath fogged against it.

“ _We got here_ by following the will of the Force.  I’m getting us out.  Fall in line.”

She marched down the stairs, and Ben and Finn followed.  As they arrived in the great hall, covered by a great glass dome, Leia reached for a radio on her chest and began describing their location.  She walked a little ways away and paced.

Rey came to.  Her head lolled around, disoriented.

“Hey,” said Ben.

“Did we get him?”

“We got him.  Just rest a minute.”

Finn and Ben hung back.  Finn trembled as his hand blistered.  Ben, blessedly, could no longer feel his hand.

“It’s a long walk out,” said Finn.

“Where is your ship?”

“It’s on the pad with the creepy statue.  It’s not big enough for all of us.  What about the Falcon?”

“They came in through a shaft. I don’t think it’s accessible.”

“Damn.”

Leia turned back to them, “You boys might want to get back.”

She trotted up the stairs to the place where it tunneled back into the rock and squinted up at the dome.

There was a bright red flash and the dome shattered.  Through it, a moment later, crashed the Millennium Falcon.  It hovered over the pitt and carefully edged to the hall.  Leia ran down the stairs as Finn and Ben gaped.  Ben recovered first, and started after her, with Finn following a moment after.

Leia waved it over, the held her palm out to indicate it to “stop.”  The walkway came down, the edge of it resting on the ledge, and she walked up.  She turned a corner, looked behind her, and pursed her lips.

“Come on!”

Finn placed Luke in the upper bunk of the living quarters of the Falcon, and Ben placed Rey in the lower one.  Leia closed the walkway and pressed a series of buttons to tell the computer to expel the internal air and replace it with normal breathing oxygen.

“Masks can come off in seven minutes.  Gloves stay on for the rest of the ride,” called Leia.

“Everyone all right?” shouted Poe in the pilot seat.

“We’re going to need a couple of really good surgeons.  Everyone who should be alive is,” shouted Leia.

Rey muttered something to Poe.

“Can’t hear you, sweetheart.”

Finn marched to the cockpit,  “She says ‘how the hell did you pull this off?’”

Foe leaned back and grinned as he maneuvered them up through the dome.

“Funny thing, after sunshine knocked me out, I woke up up with a note on me.  I had no idea you guys planned for the General to be there.  Didn’t know it _was_ her until she radioed.”

“You’re not Force-sensitive.  We had to hide it from you.  You couldn’t hide it,” said Leia.  She moved up the the navigator’s chair.  “Don’t worry, I’m going to have some pissed off admirals to debrief when we get back.”  


“… a note?”  Rey called back, as loud as she could manage.

“Yeah.  Told me to go back to the reclamation chamber.  Someone, _apparently_ , has a bad knee and is not _completely insane_ , so she took her time and used a zipline to get down the shaft.”

“Good for her,” said Rey.

“Next time go a little slower and you won’t need to pick any fights so I can keep up,” said Leia.

“Yeah.  Anyway, I climbed the zipline Leia left and got the _Falcon_.  The end.”

“Good man,” said Leia.  Leia wandered back to the living space and crouched next to Rey.  Ben was kneeling and holding Rey’s hands.

“You did good, kid.  You got it done.  That was a hell of a risk you took.  I’m not sure I could have as a mother.”

“I don’t think I’m pregnant.”

“Don’t worry about it.  You made the right choice.”

The air safety sensor chirped cheerfully.  Leia pulled her mask off, and Ben followed suit.  Leia stared at her son’s face.  Her mouth opened.  Ben looked over at her.  She hadn’t seen it since he was still a boy.

“You look _just_ like him.  Just like him.”  He winced and looked back down at Rey’s hands.

“Did she… did she lose it?  I can’t feel it.  I thought she was hiding it, but I never felt it.”

Leia pursed her lips and looked up, as if listening for something.

“I still feel a child.”

Luke piped up.  “If not now, soon.  Hours or days.”

Leia winced, “Well, that’s not information I needed,” she looked between her son and Rey, who were looking at each other.

“I can, uh, get you kids some prophylactics—“ 

“MOTHER,” Ben turned red and Rey erupted into a coughing fit.

“A-aren’t I going to stand trial?” said Ben, changing the topic.

Leia rolled her eyes.  “Someone blew up the Senate two months ago.  It’s going to take a while to set up an interim government, and I’ll be damned if we rush anyone, you included, through a military tribunal run by pissed off unelected Resistance fighters.  We’re soldiers, not jurists.”

“They’re going to say you spared his life because he’s your son,” said Luke.

“They’ll be _right_.  It’s time I retired anyway, might as well spend my political capital.”  She shouted to the cockpit, “Mr. Dameron?”

“Yes, madam?”

“You ever thought of running for Senate?”

“No ma’am.”

“Start thinking, I’m going to spend the next few months setting up a government and yanking some tails.  I need a right-hand man in office to step in once I’ve crossed the line to ask for my removal.  A war-hero type, unimpeachable integrity.  You follow?”

“At your service.”

Poe brought them into the atmosphere.  Leia walked to the cockpit and leaned over the console.  The Horn loomed.  Leia thought.

“I wish we had time to lay low.  Let things cool.”

Poe motioned over to Finn with his head.  Finn had found a first aid kit and was applying salve to his hand.  “They all need medical attention pretty bad”

“Yeah.”

Poe hailed the Horn, he received permission to dock and requested a medical team.  As soon as they put down the hatch, Chewy lumbered aboard, growling.  He spotted Ben and reached for his weapon.  Leia stepped in between.

“Chewy.”

He bellowed and motioned with his head to move.

Ben realized he left his lightsaber behind.  He hadn’t even thought of it.  Didn’t hesitate.  He was unarmed.

“Chewbacca,” said Luke.

“Please don’t,” rasped Rey.

One of the members of the medical team stuck her head in.  Chewy turned back toward the opening and growled.  Her eyes opened wide and she ducked back out.

Chewy looked up at the upper bunk.  He lowered the weapon to his side and lumbered over and pushed Ben in the face onto his back so he could stand where Ben was kneeling.  He bellowed and cried.

“I’m afraid it’s broken.”

Chewbacca gesticulated at Ben with the weapon.

“No.  He tried to fix it.”

Chewy looked down at Ben, who glowered up at him.  He looked at Leia, then Rey, then back at Luke.  He growled.

Poe strode in.  “I don’t mean to butt in.  I don’t even like the guy.  Guy tortured me.  But, uh, my personal hero besides, uh,” he pointed at Leia bashfully, “is a dude who went against everything he was taught and saved my ass.  I don’t know what he did before that, but, uh, it probably wasn’t good.”

Finn coughed, behind him.  Poe looked over his shoulder walked over to him, and threw his arm around Finn’s shoulder.  “Hey, buddy.”

“Can I see a doctor?”

“Yeah, we’re just talking.  It’s a little tense, but I think we got it.”

Chewbacca grumbled irritably.

“Yeah, sorry, I talk too much.  Anyway, maybe nobody’s a hero unless you come in on their story at the right time.  Maybe we’re all kind of scoundrels until we get a chance to be something else.  You want to get a drink with me, talk it over?”

Chewbacca shook his head and growled as he stalked out.

“I didn’t catch that,” said Poe.

“He says he’ll have a drink with you if you shut up,” said Leia.

“Ah.  I’m kind of a talker when I’m drunk.”

“When you’re drunk, huh?” said Ben.

Poe grinned down at him “That’s two favors.”

“No.  You used the other one.”

“Uh, I piloted your ass out of there, and talked a pissed off wookie out of tearing your arms off and beating you to death with them.”

Ben grimaced.

They heard a tremulous voice call in “Is is safe in there?”

“It’s clear,” shouted Leia.

A small team of people came in and assessed the situation, and quickly prioritized Luke as needing the wheeled stretcher they had.  All three helped lifting him on.  The teeny lady doctor looked Kylo Ren up and down.  He hadn’t volunteered to help them.

“Can you walk?” she said to Rey.

“I’m having a little trouble breathing,” she said.

“Big guy, you think you could carry the girl?”

He nodded.

“I don’t know, he’s gone a whole half hour without practicing,” said Rey.

“Ha,” he said.

As the doctor turned, she spotted the black helmet.  She turned back to him and looked at the clothes.  Her mouth opened.

“Doctor Wunt,” said Leia.

“I— I—“

“He provided aid.  We’ll resolve it at trial.”

“Y— yes ma’am.  Mr.— Mr. Ren?”

He opened his mouth to correct her to his correct form of address— Lord or Master— but shut it again.

“Ben Solo.  Please call me Ben.”

“ _Mr_. Solo, please help with, uh— I’m sorry, what’s your name, dear?”

“Rey of Ren,” said Rey.

The doctor's face face flashed a bright red, this time unable to hide her disgust and fury under her professional mask.  “Please help with _Rey_ , _Mr. Solo._ ” 

The doctor saw how he held his hand as he slipped it under Rey.  It was a stiff, misshapen claw.

“That hand thing fresh?  It looks old.”  


“It’s new.”  


“You’re going to need a surgeon to evaluate it as soon as possible.”  


He nodded.

Doctor Wunt motioned to her assistants and they rolled Luke off.   Leia, Poe, and Finn stared at them.  

“Do you have something to tell us?” said Finn.

“Yes, by all means, _Ms_. Rey of Ren.” said Leia.

Ben considered it, briefly, then gave them a wolfish smile as he lifted Rey.

“ _No_.”

He strode off the Falcon, and the other three hung back, exhausted by the idea of talking to Ben any further that day.

“You may have given them the wrong impression,” he said.  “‘Rey of Ren?’”

“I don’t have a family name.  A title works the same way, right?  ‘Of Ren?’  Did I get it wrong?”

“No.  I think the New Order which legitimized the title is a little… defunct.”

“I won’t say that’s a shame. I’ll miss having a family name.  I’m going to need a new one.”

He swallowed.

“I, uh, might have one in mind.”

“I’m listening.”

—

At the infirmary, doctors worked slowly through the casualties of the battle.  Many of them had already been cleared out by the time they got there.

Finn was informed he would need skin grafts.  Rey was placed in a liquid vat full of oxygen-enriched fluid for a day and a half to encourage the scarred and closed-off parts of her lungs to open back up.  Normally the treatment would have been weeks, but she was almost fully healed.  There was little they could do to minimize scarring.

The doctors did several rounds of tests on Ben, and determined that if he wanted full range of motion, he needed to replace it with a prosthetic.  When they were finished, they replaced the cuffs on him.   The Admirals had insisted upon it, and Leia did not fight them.

“When do we start?” asked Ben.

The surgeon made a face.  “It’s a lot of resources, and uh….”

“Yes?”

Leia had accompanied him to the consult.  The surgeon looked at her.

“Do you have an objection to using _my_ resources?” she said.

The surgeon bowed.  “Your highness.”  He offered no further explanation.

“Call me _General_ , please, doctor.” she said.

Poe strode in, “Sorry to interrupt,” he stood at attention.  “A word, General?”

She stepped out.  She was back in within a minute.  She leaned over and whispered to Ben.

“They found Phasma.  She was captured and surrendered on the planetary shield generator on Vjun.  She caused a lot of trouble trying to escape, so they passed summary judgement for war crimes and executed her on site.  The charge, among others, was the massacre on Jakku.”

He swallowed and nodded, then glanced over at the surgeon.

“I understand your hesitation,” said Ben.  “I respect your professionalismm.”

The surgeon bowed.

—  
Rey and Ben were permitted to stay in the same quarters.  About a week later, they approached Leia.

“I, uh, I guess we’re pregnant after all?” said Rey, sheepishly.

Leia rolled her eyes and pointed at each of them.

“This was stupid.”

“I think we just got used to the idea,” said Rey.

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s what you were thinking,” said Leia.

They were permitted to schedule a quick ceremony for the following day.  Finn and Poe declined to attend, in writing.  They all decided Chewy would be happier hearing about it than being invited.  Luke emphatically did not bless the union when he was informed and Leia withheld her opinion.  She did, however hand Rey a card with credits on it to obtain an officiant.

“Thank you,” said Ben.

“This is for _her_ ,” said Leia.

“Then thank you _very much_ ,” he said through his teeth.

Luke, accepting he had been overruled, found them an officiant whose scruples were proportional to the contents of his credit account, and whose account happened to be empty.

—

Luke arrived shortly before the wedding at Ben’s quarters.  He was told movement couldn’t be repaired without a fist-sized mechanical implant in his back, and he adamantly refused.  Surgery was scheduled to potentially repair some sensation below his waist, but movement could not be helped without an implant.  Instead, they’d given him a very old-fashioned solution: over-the-leg braces, which sensed the movement of the muscles in his upper back.

“Leia and I have a gift,” he said.  He placed a box on the table.  Ben was in the mirror, cleaning the edges of his beard with a straight razor.  He wiped the foam off on a towel.

“How kind.”

“Open it now.”

Ben turned around, half his face covered in foam.  He looked Luke up and down, and turned back around to finish.  Unwrapped it for him and placed it on the table.  When Ben was ready, he turned around.

It was a tailored set of clothing, similar to Ben’s own, but with a cross-body wrapped front that echoed Jedi robes.  It was dove gray.

“I’m fine, thank you.”

“No.  You aren’t.  There’s going to be a trial.  You need to convince people you’re a new man.”

“What I look like has nothing to do with my character.”

“I know a little bit about your character, Ben.”

Ben grit his teeth.  “A very little.”

“Yeah.  Look, there aren’t any Jedi left, but there are some religious people who still believe in the Force, and they’ll have some sway when the Senate re-forms.  There is a prophecy that someone is going to bring balance to the Force.  A lot of people still think it’s me. I can convince them you are the one, and it might save your skin.  You need to look the part.  You need a different name.”

“That’s not me.  I’m not that man.”

Luke picked up the clothes and pressed it to Ben’s chest.

“Make yourself that man.  You don’t get to leave another fatherless Skywalker behind.”

Ben snatched the robes from Luke’s hand, and threw them on the table.  Luke didn’t give him the reaction he wanted.

“Your mother and I failed you.  We’ll never fix it.  Please let us help.”

Ben rubbed his face with his hands and resisted the urge to throw something.

—

Leia had had a similar and less contentious discussion with Rey, in her own quarters, where the ceremony was to be held.  Luke left Ben to give Ben space to decide about the clothes alone.   Ben heard a knock.  It was the guards to escort him.  He opened the door and held out his wrists.

“Heya, sunshine,” said Poe.

“…I thought you turned down the invitation.”

“We had work,” said Finn.

“This is work,” said Poe.  Poe cheerfully clapped the cuffs on Ben.

“Have you been demoted?  Armed escort seems a little beneath you…” he glanced over at Finn and said, begrudgingly “… both.  You both.”

Finn shifted uncomfortably.  Poe glanced between Ben and Finn.  His face softened, almost imperceptibly.

“I’m a square-jawed stable type who isn’t too big for any job,” said Poe.  “They just wanted to make sure you wouldn’t escape.”

“What he said,” said Finn.  “This can’t reflect badly on Poe, he’s got orders.  And, uh, an election in a year and a half to win.”

“Give or take,” said Poe.  “Leia has to call for elections, but we’ve got some rebuilding to do first.”

“I see.”

“You’re not off my shit list, sunshine.  I’ll still kill you if you mess this up.”

“Please do.”

—

People in the halls of the Resistance Headquarters spotted Poe and Finn first, then noted the young man in the gray Jedi clothes.  One of them, a young woman’s, face turned white.  She leaned over and whispered furiously to a man in a pilot jumpsuit, who strained to look at them.  The woman ran off.  Poe intentionally slowed their walk down.

“Looks like you’ll be having a reception,” whispered Poe.

“Oh, _good_.  People.”

Finn snickered.

Half a dozen people milled around the entrance to Leia’s quarters.  Poe had taken them on a very indirect route, and had gotten around.  Poe put on a very convincing grim duty face, squared his jaw, and opened the door.  Finn glared at the gawkers at the threshold and closed it behind him.

“Has anyone ever told you you’d be an asset to the Dark Side?”  Ben said to Poe.

“That hasn’t come up,” said Poe, but Ben didn’t hear him.  He’s spotted Rey.

She was sitting next to Luke, speaking to him at the dining table near the door.  Rey wore the same color dove gray that Ben reluctantly donned, in a high waisted, full skirted dress.  The upper part of her garment echoed his, the same Jedi wrap.  He gawked as Poe undid his cuffs.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hi,” she said.  Her voice had a strange, husky rasp.  She had not quite recovered her entire lung capacity, and had been told she never would.

The officiant slid up to Ben. “Welcome, dearly beloved, to this joyous celebration.”

Ben carefully studied the greasy little man, memorizing every inch of his face for later recollection.  Luke watched Ben and turned to the officiant.

“I think your services are no longer needed.  You should leave now.”

The officiant opened his mouth to protest.

“You may keep the fee.”

The officiant ceased his protest and was out the door in seconds.

“Ben,” said Rey.

“ _I_ didn’t ask him to leave.”

“Why not?  More quickly, next time,” she said.  Ben grinned at her.

“Let’s start,” said Luke.

“We don’t have anyone to marry us,” said Ben.

“I don’t think anyone will object if I bless the union,” said Luke.  

Luke’s face dared Ben to contradict.

—

It was over in a minute and a half, and only because Leia was in the bathroom washing her hands, and they waited for her.  They ate dinner and drank in relative silence.

“I’m sure you’ll want to be getting home,” said Leia.  “You must be tired.”

“Yes, we’ll take our leave, mother.”

Leia nodded.  He stood, and she stood.  She held her hand out to shake.  He paused, and then took it.

“I love you son.  Even if I don’t particularly like you.”

“I understand.”

“We’ll see.” 

She turned to Rey, and gave her a hug, and kissed her on the cheek.

“Welcome to the family.”  Rey nodded.

“Time for some theater,” said Leia.  “You two ready?”

“No,” said Ben.

“Got it memorized?” said Leia to Luke.

“Yeah. Sounds nothing like me.”  


“It sounds like a Jedi,” said Leia, defensively.  Luke sighed.

Luke stood by the door as Poe put the cuffs back on Ben.  He opened it.  He, Rey, Poe and Finn stepped out.

A huge throng filled the hall, a hundred at least, and more beyond their line of sight.  They erupted into gasps and whispers.  Poe and Finn stood in front.

“This is a fire hazard,” called Finn.  “Clear out.”

“Make way,” said Poe.  “Give them space.”

“You owe us an explanation,” said someone.  The crowd murmured louder.

“It’s private,” said Poe.  “They’ll make a statement when they’re ready.”

Luke pushed past both of them, and the crowd suddenly fell silent, as if in the presence of a minor deity.  He searched the crowd, making brief eye contact with every man, woman, and creature he could.

“I have the honor of presenting a hero of our latest battle.  She sacrificed her health and risked her life to defeat the New Order, and I owe her a debt beyond what I can ever repay.  As an orphan of this terrible war, as my student, a survivor of the massacre at the Jedi order, I have offered her my name and entrusted her with continuing my work when I am gone.  She has graciously accepted.   I present madam Rey Skywalker.  May I also introduce her husband, my nephew, Leia’s son, taken from us as so many of our children were, and now rescued from the clutches of the New Order: Ben Skywalker, once known as Kylo Ren.  May the Force be with them.”

The couple gave a short bow, and the crowd roared as Poe beat his fist against the wall to try and restore order so he could clear a path.

—

_**The end.** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note: While I may have more stories to tell with these characters, as they stand now, this is a logical end to where we started. I may write a sequel after a break to bathe and be a person in real life for a while. I believe that will be called Heretic, if it’s ever written. I need to see if it works before I decide to share.
> 
> Also, I may update with side-scenes I chose to omit. I was pretty uncomfortable with writing a full sex scene. I wrote it anyway. I'll see whether I want to edit it into 7 or add it as an "extra" chapter at the end. Also, someone asked for a cute little baby!Rey and baby!Ren scene. I'm going to do some research and write that in the next couple days.
> 
> Anyway: Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed it, please consider a donation to Adam Driver’s charity, Arts in the Armed Forces. It’s stupid, but he (and to a lesser extent, Lin-Manuel Miranda) a man roughly my age and making shit, made me say, “shit, I need to start making things again,” after a ten year recovery from an experience that made me feel paralyzed and unable to express myself. It’s an unbelievable gift to give that back to someone. Arts in the Armed Forces is about helping give that to servicemen and women. Please donate.
> 
> I made a thing, everyone. It’s fanfiction, but hopefully, it’ll be good practice for whatever else I choose to make.


	14. Seven point five: a scene deferred

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A scene deferred. Explicit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't like author's notes except on the "bonus scenes." Consider this a bonus.
> 
> So, as I wrote in my stupid Tumblr, I avoided this because the way I wrote Kylo Ren, he's very "in his body." How he looks is important. And he happens to look exactly like Adam Driver. And Adam Driver is a person with feelings, and a face, and like, probably a sweet grandma. It's, like, objectifying to make a doll out of him and smash him together the way some people smashed Barbie and Ken together as kids (YOU KNOW YOU DID, DO NOT LIE).
> 
> Real person fic is my personal gross-out. This is not it, but it felt like its second cousin. Just close enough to be a little gross, but A-OK in most of the South.
> 
> So this is uncomfortable, but maybe that means it's worth doing. Whatever. Don't overthink your porn, kids.
> 
> This takes place around 2/3rds of the way through Part 7.

When he woke up, she was in the cot with him.  Her back was pressed against his chest, and their breathing was very close to synchronized.  He lifted his head.  Her arm was under his.  He hadn’t remembered falling asleep like that.  She was still wearing his black cloak over her now dark beige clothing.  He was in his undergarment, having waded in to rinse the sweat off of him the night before.  
She started awake when he moved.

“Nn?”

“Uh,” he said.

She turned and looked at him.

“Sorry.  I couldn’t stay awake.  You were pretty far gone.  I figured if you moved, I’d wake up.”

He nodded lightly.  “Inventive.  Very good.”

She smiled a little at him.  “You can still talk?  Still going to order me around?”

“I’m working up to it.”

“That’s good.  Thought I might have lost you.”

“Well.”

She put her head down on his arm.  He looked down at her and tilted his head.  He put his other hand on her cheek and she turned toward it.  He rubbed his thumb on her bottom lip, lightly.

“I thought you didn’t want to do this while we were on the planet,” she said.

“I think we left the planet.  Didn’t I say that?”

She nodded.  “Are you in any state to…?”

He gave her a wry look.  His eyes flitted down toward his pelvis, then back up at her.  She turned bright red.  “No, I mean, you’re kind of….”

“Emotionally compromised?” he said, with a hint of melodrama.

“Yes.  Very.”

He huffed.  “It’s not as if I’m worse.  And… you know I’ve wanted this since I first saw you.”  He paused a beat.  “I mean, as an adult.  Not in a strange way.”  
She made a face.

“Maybe in a strange way.”

“This is just, wow,” she vibrated with laughter.  “This is magic.”

“You’re mocking me.”

“You’re brilliant.  I’m seduced.”

He pinched her on her upper thigh, and she yelped and laughed and pecked him on the mouth.  He pulled his arm out from under her and kissed her, flat on the cot, and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders.  His tongue slipped into her mouth.  He gently pressed his weight against her legs, and they parted for him.  He kissed down the center of her chest, off the edge of the cot and onto his knees, and moved aside the cloth of her garment exposing her breast, and kissed it.  She exhaled and held the back of his head.

He pulled away and looked up at her as he pulled his undergarment off of him.  Her breath was shaking, and she stared resolutely at his face, and he into hers.   He grasped the edges of her pants and she lifted her hips to assist him, and as he cast them aside she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him back into a kiss, and lowered herself with him in tow, pulling his weight onto her.

The cot wrapped itself up her arms pinning her to him, but she held him close to her, unwilling to let him up.  She could not move her legs further aside.  She felt him pressed into her thigh.  Her lips parted and he slipped his tongue into her mouth.  She exhaled, and his crushing weight pressed against her stomach made it difficult to breathe.  He pulled away, steadying himself on the frame of the cot.

“This is not going to work,” he muttered, and rolled sideways off of her, bruising her calf with his knee and landing hard on the other.  She cried out in protest and sat up, following him, and pulled his face back to her parted lips.  She ran her teeth lightly over his bottom lip and dug her nails lightly into the side of his face.  His eyes fluttered.

Kneeling, he pulled her hips to the side of the bed and grabbed her upper thigh in his massive hands and pulled them, roughly apart.  He stopped and pulled away to look at her face, his jaw out and lower teeth exposed.  He looked from her eyes to her lips and huffed.  She sat up straighter and pulled her knees further back under her.  He nodded upward, once, and, still gripping her thighs, pressed himself slowly into her.

She was not yet wet, and opened her mouth at the visceral, shocking pain of it.  He stopped pressing and wrapped one hand around himself to help guide himself in.

“Shh, shh, j-just a moment.” she said.  She opened her eyes.

The strangeness of the situation, in that moment, went over her in little waves of nausea.  She felt like she was looking at herself from the outside, legs open for a stranger.  From her point of view, admired and devoted herself to for years, but who seemed only stranger, wilder, more monstrous from knowing.

She lifted a hand up to his face, and he turned into it.  Her little finger pressed against his lips and he wrapped his lips around it and sucked, lightly.  She exhaled.  He slowly started pressing into her again.  This time, her flesh yielded.  He pulled back and pressed in again, this time more firmly, and she gasped.

“Should I stop?”

“N-no.”

He pulled her off the cot, still inside her, and rolled her off onto the ground.  She hissed as her shoulder blades scraped against the rock.  He pinned her thighs under her with the tops of his knees and beat into her.  The skin on his neck and chest flushed, and she felt the sweat between his shoulders as she ran her fingernails across his back.

“Do you want this?”

“Y—” but she couldn’t answer.  Her mouth formed the syllables, but they came out as a keening, ecstatic cry.  She felt her stomach muscles tense, involuntarily as the pleasure began to mount.  

— But then he tensed suddenly, and his steady rhythm hiccuped.  He grit his teeth and clenched his eyes, then opened his mouth and eyes wide.

“D-damn.” he said.  He pulled out of her, and she groaned in protest.  She looked down, and saw the line where his hip connected to his torso glistened with sweat and her own wetness.

He curled his fingers under her waist and ribcage, and flipped her onto her stomach, roughly, and kneeled next to her.  Quickly, he pressed his hand on the top of her backside, and pulled her tunic off of her.  He moved the hand up to the top of her back.

“Knees under you,” he ordered.  He let up a little long enough to pull them up, then pressed down again.

It occurred to her, in that moment, how massive he was compared to her.  Her breath caught in her throat.  He ran his other hand over her backside.  She felt his fingers brush against her most sensitive area.

“You can stop me any time.”

“Don’t stop.”

He rubbed lightly, and probed, first with one finger, then two.  First gently, then firmer.  Her knees moved involuntarily and he pressed down harder.

“Ask.”

“C-can I move?”

He pressed down harder.

“Can you?”

“May I?”

“Do you want to?”

“Yes.  Please.”

He let up and she changed the angle of her hips.  He followed the tempo she dictated.  She squealed and gasped.

“P-p-please, please—”

He slowed, “Yes?”

“Let— me help, please.”

He moved his hand from her back onto her backside.  She remained prostrate, and moved her arm under her to press against herself.  He nearly withdrew his fingers to make way for hers.

“No,” she bucked her hips back over his fingers, and he understood.  He moved behind her, gripped her, and rhythmically pressed into her again as she rubbed her clitoris between her fingers.

“Breathe,” he reminded her.  She obeyed, and—

— and finally, she felt the skin on her neck flush in waves, and her hips jerk involuntarily as she whited out with pleasure.  Her eyes rolled back and she exhaled, slowly.  She let her weight sink downward, and further downward, into the cold, hard rock beneath her.  Her neck cracked as she slowly moved her head to look at him.  

Just as slowly, he withdrew his fingers.  She felt his body heat as he crawled up beside her.  She rolled over.  He hung over her, his face examining hers.  He had a look she interpreted as well-concealed worry.

“I’m OK.”

He nodded and wet his lower lip with his tongue.  “Next time, I’ll—“

She laughed.  “Already?”

“Well, uh, no.  You see, I, uh—”

“I know.  I know.”  His hair hung down.  A few strands were in his face.  She reached up and brushed them aside.

“You think you can do better?” she said.

“I know it.”

“I’m in trouble, then.”  She smiled at him, and despite himself, he gave her a sheepish grin.  “Oh, it’s worse now,” she said.  

She leaned up to kiss him, and he reciprocated.  He pulled away, suddenly, and stood.  He looked around for, and found his boots, and plopped onto the cot.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m hungry.  I’m not eating roots after that.  I’m getting fruit.”

“There’s fruit?”

He nodded and waved off at the forest. “Not a lot, but some.”

“What about the, uh, next time?  Will it take long?”

His eyes flicked back to hers,  “I might be in trouble if that’s your pace.  You’re going to have to catch me.”

“You’re on.”

“I’m faster than you.”

“You’re going to want to get caught.”

He pointed at her defiantly, turned on his heel, and ran, naked except for his boots.  Rey fumbled for hers and ran after him until he let her catch him.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Different Way](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7488408) by [reylotraash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reylotraash/pseuds/reylotraash)




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